The Weapon
by QTuani7
Summary: After Sirius's death, Harry devotes himself to learning magic in a desperate attempt to protect the people he loves. Warnings: Profanity, Extreme Violence, References to Non-Con
1. Chapter 1

Hellos all, I'm going to try and update/continue this as often as possible, but I can't give y'all any fixed weekly/monthly schedule for that. However, being as how Fanfiction has taken over my social & school life, this should be updated fairly regularly. Lemon drops for anyone with reviews! Lemon drops & chocolate frogs for anyone with negative reviews!

(As awesome sauce fun as it is to get positive feedback, the negative "um...that just doesn't work..at all" comments that rip out little bits of soul and feed them to the thestrals are hot 'cause they help me make my story better. Do both! I'm a stranger, I'll give you candy!) :]

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He who fights with monsters

should be careful,

least he thereby becomes a monster.

When you stare at the abyss,

the abyss stares back at you."

**Friedrich Nietzsche **

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"So," said Harry, dredging up the words from what felt like a deep well of despair inside him, "so does that mean that. . .that one of us has got to kill the other one . . .in the end?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Somewhere far beyond the office walls, Harry could hear the sound of voices, students heading down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast, perhaps. It seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever. Sirius seemed a million miles away already, even if a part of Harry still believed that if he had only pulled back that veil, he would have found Sirius looking back at him, greeting him, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark. . .

"You're right; You should have told me that ages ago." Harry's voice sounded dead even to his own ears. He couldn't remember how it usually sounded, could barely remember how it felt to roam around the castle making noise and talking. Harry shook his head, trying to clear away the thoughts so he could think, he felt like there was something important to be thinking about. The headmaster still hadn't answered him, he realized. Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore's face into his long silver beard. He gazed around at the broken instruments he'd strewn across the room. He'd been such a child for so long! Now that his rage had passed, Harry felt a new emotion brewing beneath the grief that pounded through every thought. Shame. He'd been such a child! Rushing into the Ministry like he could face Voldemort's army with his band of teenagers…refusing to learn Occlumency…never listening to anyone, not Dumbledore or Hermione or Snape…and Snape had warned him!

_…Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord! Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily-weak people, in other words-they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter! _  
Snape's words returned to him with disturbing clarity. The mantra came to him perfectly now, despite the fact that he'd barely been listening to the man back then. But why the hell _hadn't_ he been listening? What could be more important than that warning? He'd been angry, Harry remembered, too angry to do anything. Too angry to listen and too angry to learn. Snape had seen it the entire time.

Harry gazed at Dumbledore as his thoughts circled. He'd never listened to Snape, but Dumbledore should have guessed that. _He didn't even tell me why I had to learn Occlumency, left that to Snape. Merlin knows I've been calling the man a spy for five years, of course I wouldn't take Snape's word on anything about Voldemort._ Harry remembered using Fred and George's Extendable Ears to eavesdrop on the Order; why had he had to find out that way? _Of course it never felt real to me, Mad-Eye mentioned Voldemort possessing me but that felt like rumors, Moody's own guesswork, Dumbledore never told me anything about it._ Harry knew he would have studied if Dumbledore had told him to, had told him _why_, but Dumbledore never told him anything.  
_I'__ve always had to think for myself, find out for myself, and that saved the Philosopher's Stone! Saved Ginny's _life_ second year. _

_No._ A tougher part of his brain clamped down on his running excuses._ No, I was just always lucky before. 11 years old and running after a mountain troll? Getting past Fluffy, planning to face off with a fully trained wizard teacher? The wrong teacher no less? Running down into the depths of the castle to fight a fully grown basilisk? As a 12 year old? Without word to anyone but Lockhart as to where I was going? Foolhardy! Hair-brained!_ Harry remembered Hermione mentioning his 'saving people thing' and felt the well of shame in his stomach grow deeper. _And Dumbledore awarded points?_ Harry searched Dumbledore's regret-lined face, wishing he could ask the questions that leaped to his mind and get a better answer for them. He hated the answer Dumbledore had given him.  
_He cares too much._ Harry repeated to himself silently. Suddenly he understood why that had created such a great flaw in Dumbledore's plan. _He wants me happy more than anything. More than scolding me, more than teaching me to grow up, more than teaching me how to not be an idiot, how to close my mind, how to not get my friends' killed. _

_Of course Dumbledore never told me anything, he knew the truth would hurt me. I am marked to be a great weapon against Voldemort, and weapons are made for killing people. Dumbledore should have been training me since first year, and he knows it, but that would have stolen even more of my childhood from me. The world needs a soldier, and he knows that child soldiers aren't children for very long. And he cared more about that than the lives of people I could save. He was supposed to make me into a soldier and he made me into a liability. I got Sirius killed. I got Cedric killed. Who's next? _Harry couldn't stop repeating it. His thoughts were spinning around him, stabbing him at every picture of Sirius's face as he died flashed into his head. Cedric's._ Who's next_?

Harry looked around Dumbledore's office, beginning to feel nauseated. He was always angry, but he'd never done anything about it. He'd never pushed himself, never studied, never trained, he'd been so _weak _for so _long_… He'd barely been able to fight the Death Eaters, he'd hidden behind a statue and let Dumbledore fight Voldemort! He'd had no choice, because he wasn't a soldier like Dumbledore, he was a child. Children were allowed to hide. Could he have prevented it? If he'd been able to fight? If he'd studied and listened and trained to be a weapon in the fight, rather than a child for Sirius and Dumbledore and the Order to protect? If he'd been in training as a soldier for years, would Sirius be here, ready to talk to him about the next Dark Art he needed to learn?_  
_

_Weapon_… The word sparked a memory, of Sirius talking about Voldemort, and saying the Dark Lord was going after a weapon, something worse than Avada Kedavra. _Of course...the prophesy…he doesn't understand why he wasn't able to kill me.. He's trying to figure it out now, figure out what is stronger than Avada Kedavra. _Harry knew, without a doubt, that given time Voldemort would find a way to kill him. Voldemort would never stop searching until he'd killed The Boy Who Lived, and everyone he loved. The prophesy had ensured that. _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ...__ What power?_, Harry thought. He hadn't killed Voldemort as a baby, his mother's Blood Bond wasn't enough, and Voldemort could touch him now. But if the Blood Bond wasn't the "power the Dark Lord knows not", what was _his_ power? How was he was supposed to vanquish the Dark Lord?

Suddenly Harry knew the true nature of the War that had started the night Wormtail threw his stolen blood into Voldemort's cauldron. The War was to be a race for knowledge. Voldemort was looking for a way to kill him, for a weapon against him. _That's why Sirius called the prophesy a weapon, it's a weapon against me. And I have to do the same...to find the power that can vanquish him forever.. I have to _be_ the weapon against him._

Harry felt lost, sitting in Dumbledore's peaceful office, thinking about a war he was supposed to join. He was just a fifteen year old fool that had gotten his godfather killed, he knew nothing about magic. And even when he was angry enough to torture Lestrange he hadn't wanted it enough. What did he know about war? He couldn't use a unforgivable when he wanted nothing more in the world, how was he supposed to kill anyone? Harry wondered how he'd spent so much time lazing about the castle, when every day he hadn't studied had risked someone's life, _Sirius's life_.  
He felt like he'd known it was up to him to kill Voldemort from the first time that Hagrid had told him that "You Know Who" might not be gone forever. But he'd never connected it all together, and Dumbledore had tried so hard to hide the truth from him. But the truth was plain, even if Dumbledore had sprung it on him at the worst possible moment, hours too late and while his heart was still trying to rip itself out of his chest from adrenaline and fury. But he knew the truth now, and he couldn't hide from it: A man far more powerful than any fifteen year old slacker was working to kill him, and if he was lucky enough to survive at all, he would have to kill someone. And Harry had never before realized how very unprepared he was for that.

"You should have told me this so long ago." Harry repeated, meeting Dumbledore's milky, regretful eyes. That gaze was too much for him. Harry felt his emotions bubbling up from his stomach, and he knew it was time to leave. Harry stood up, gathered the shards of the first glass globe he'd smashed to the floor, fixed them together with a careful 'reparo', and gently returned the instrument to the Headmaster's desk.

"Excuse me, Professor. I have some business to attend to." Harry excused himself, knowing that he sounded like a Malfoy but unable to care about that just then. He already knew he was going to explode, and wanted to do it in private this time. He felt something building in his chest, a kind of desperation that made him want to run and scream and punch something into the ground. He ran, and made it all the way up into Gryffindor Tower before tears started pouring down his face. He layered silencing spells around the room, and locked the door with every spell he knew. He'd felt the grief and shame in the Headmaster's office, but now he was drowning in it.  
The grief that had him panicked and furious less than an hour before now sat as a churning pain in his chest that threatened to choke him. Harry pounded his hand against a bedpost as he cried, but there was no anger in it. His anger was gone, he'd screamed it out in Dumbledore's office, and now there was nothing but tears left  
He spent the night crying. It came in waves. The worst hit him when he found Sirius's mirror and felt his guilt roar up inside him again. Somehow the dorm stayed empty for him, no one even tried to enter the door he'd locked, and in some remote, thinking part of his brain he realized that Ron must have pulled in a few favors for him from the dorm-mates. He unlocked the door after the first wave of tears, but he'd fallen asleep still blessedly alone.

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"Harry, you've got to eat something." Hermione sounded worried. Harry looked down at his plate. He'd taken a bite out of his sausage and left it; an uncommon occurrence. He never wasted food, but it was different this morning; Breakfast tasted like corpses. Most of the students chattered noisily around them. They didn't know what had happened, Harry remembered, but their laughter still sounded obscene. He ignored them.

"Harry, are you going to get through this summer all right?" He looked up, realizing that he'd never answered Hermione's question, and that she was holding his hand from across the table. _She knows about the Dursleys_. Some alive part of his mind realized. Harry looked up, and saw it in her eyes.

"I will survive the summer with them." He responded, a few seconds late. She looked startled about something, then hurt, then worried, then determined. Are we all so easy to read? He wondered dully.

"I'll miss you Harry." She said it like it was exceedingly important information to impart to him. "We all will. We love you." She tightened her hold on his hand and managed to elbow Ron with the other arm.

"Yeah, Harry." Ron added awkwardly. Hermione glared at him. "Hey man, are you alright?" He managed to say it sincerely, despite getting elbowed in the ribs for it. Harry looked at him, and saw that same concern there. He smothered his reaction to tell the truth that he just wanted to be left alone.

"Alright? No." Harry tried not to get angry about how obviously not alright he was, and tell the truth to his friend. It was surprisingly easy not to react; he didn't have the energy to get angry. "I feel. . .hollow."  
It was true. He'd gotten out all of his rage and tears the night before, and now he found there was nothing left to him. He felt as if, were Hermione to press his hand any harder, his skin would crack and crumble into itself, revealing nothing more inside him than a little bit of dust, maybe. As soon as he'd thought it, Hermione tightened her hold for a second, as if testing him. Harry wondered if the only thing that kept it from happening was the mantra that kept repeating in his head. He'd woken up to it. _No more deaths, not if I can save them. No more deaths, I will save them._

"Hey guys, I've gotta go." Harry pulled his hand from Hermione's soft grip and stood up.

"Where do you have to go? There's nothing left to do but eat and leave." Ron asked him.

"I'll see you guys in the train, okay?" Harry left.

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"Excuse me, Ma'am?"

Madam Pince emerged calmly from the back of her office carrying a pile of mangled library cards.

"I know this is last minute, but Professor Dumbledore gave me permission to get some books out for the summer." Harry lifted his empty schoolbag up onto his shoulder as if it were heavy. He'd already spelled it to look full, but he didn't want to leave any doubt. Madam Pince placed her cards on a cluttered desk, shaking her head.

"Library texts can not be taken from Hogwarts grounds, Mr. Potter."

"But Dumbledore said I coul-" Harry cut himself off and sighed. "He said I should, actually. Honestly I don't think books are going to help keep my mind off anything." Harry looked up at her, hoping she'd heard something about the Ministry attack. Sympathy shined clearly through her usually strict countenance. _Looks like she's an Order member, then, she certainly wouldn't have heard anything from Fudge about it yet. _

"Books are fragile, Mr. Potter. I can not-"

"Oh I know!" He rushed to explain. "Nothing from the restricted section, and Dumbledore said nothing over-" Harry hesitated, thinking quickly. "two or three hundred years old."  
The old woman sighed, and looked him over.

"_Professor_ Dumbledore, Mr. Potter, and get them quickly. You're not leaving with more than five books, so chose carefully." She warned as she crossed around the counter with a stack of returned books to be shelved. Harry felt his body relax at his success, and noted her maneuvering to watch him. She'd taught them all the spell to carefully reshelf books in their first year. He watched her carry around the books by hand, and decided to wander around the library where she could see him for awhile. He pretended to ponder over volumes in front of her, before returning them carefully to their shelves, only to chose another at random to examine. In his head he was trying to create a list of the kinds of books he would focus his search on. Evidently the stern librarian ascertained that Harry wasn't going to cart off her whole library or damage anything, for she soon disappeared back into the office.

Harry started in the Magical Theory section, and worked his way around the library by subject matter. He shrank entire volumes of books at a time. He knew how small they could go before being damaged, and he filled his bag with the tiny books on magical theory, methodology, spell creation, transfigurations, potion making, charms and the few dark magic guides that had survived outside the Restricted Section. Sneaking into the Restricted Section was easier than ever during the day. It wasn't even locked, but he still didn't dare linger. Nor could he open or shrink these books; he'd learned the hard way that they would scream if disturbed at all, and shrinking books protected against it (which these almost certainly were) could damage them terribly. Unable to open the books nor linger over each volume, Harry picked up the largest books he could find on highly powerful and offensive magics, and fit them in his bag, packed around the miniatures. He snuck out of the Restricted Section with his bag legitimately heavy, though it didn't look any more stuffed than when he'd entered. He picked out four obviously innocuous textbooks to carry in his arms past the front desk.

Madam Pince nodded at him as he left, clearly unaware that he was walking out with over forty of her books.  
He had to run up to the Tower to have time to pack. He had to return all the books to their exact natural size, else the text would be unreadable, and the gentlest spells took time. He would have preferred to spend more time on the difficult project, but he didn't have the time. He'd be restricted from using any magic as soon as he left Hogwarts, and most of his dorm-mates would be long out of breakfast and ready for the train by now. For the first time Harry was grateful that he'd never had enough possessions to even properly line the bottom of his trunk, for now he found himself struggling to fit the books and his spare clothing in at the same time. By the time he'd managed, his wingardium leviosa barely lifted the trunk above the ground, and it shook terribly, but that would have to do.

He finished just in time; the minute he snapped the final latch on his trunk closed, a popping sound heralded the arrival of a house-elf coming to bring the student's possessions down to the train.

"Young Master better hurry, sir, the rest of students are all gathering to be going now." The house-elf warned between bows.

"Thank you." Harry responded, sparking another set of low bows. Harry was glad it wasn't Dobby, he didn't think he could handle the elf's gratitude right then, or noise in general really. He'd have given up his fortune for the chance to lock himself away and ignore the world for a little longer before the train ride 'home'. His nerves were so on-end he was almost vibrating with the need for a good fist fight with someone, and he felt far from able to control his temper, a skill he'd need to be able to handle the Dursleys without killing any of them.

Harry walked down to the Great Hall, not caring if he was a few minutes late. Someone would almost certainly be later than he anyway. He was right; three girls came careening down the hall to the Main Entrance right after he'd arrived. They were first years, and had come dragging their trunks the entire way. Harry got out of their way, and looked around for Ron or Hermione.

"Potter." A smooth voice called to him before he'd found his friends. Harry pulled his wand into his hand before he looked over to see Malfoy leaning casually against the front door. The blond pushed himself off from the door and stalked toward Harry, followed quickly by Crabbe and Goyle. _Maybe I'll get my fight in after all. _

"Don't mess with me Malfoy." Harry was surprised at how angry his voice sounded. He didn't _think _he was angry…Still, he had to work on that. _Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions… _Suddenly Harry found himself respecting Draco's blank face and casual slouch; he had no idea if the boy was about to hex him or not. Not that Harry doubted Malfoy's aggressive motives for a minute, but he was impressed that Malfoy looked as though he'd just called out to ask what the Potions' homework was.

"You're dead, Potter." Malfoy pronounced in a low voice.

Harry raised his eyebrows, but didn't bother responding. Hermione usually waited beside the entrance doors, but Harry couldn't see her anywhere over there.

"You're going to pay," said Malfoy in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "_I'm _going to make you pay for what you've done to my fahter. . ."

"Well, I'm terrified now," said Harry sarcastically. "I suppose Lord Voldemort's really just a warm-up compared to you--what's the matter?" He said, for Malfoy looked stricken at the name. "He's your dad's mate, isn't he? Not scared of him are you?" Harry pulled his eyes off the blond to scan the crowd again.

"You think you're such a big man, Potter." Malfoy sneered as he advanced with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. "You wait, I'll have you. You can't land my father in prison-"

"I thought I just had" Said Harry idly, still not bothering to look at his so-called 'rival'. The whole idea of a Hogwarts rivalry seemed childish now, and he certainly wasn't scared by the blond, especially when Draco wouldn't dare hex him with so many teachers nearby. The boy was still a coward, hadn't changed at all. It was odd to think as anything being the same as before the Ministry.. Harry felt the thought punch him in the stomach and cut off the thought before it started haunting him further.

"The Dementors have left Azkaban, my Dad and the others'll be out in no time. . ."

"Yeah, I expect they will," said Harry truthfully, finally spotting Ron and Hermione running towards the crowd together. "Enjoy your summer, Malfoy." Harry replied, glancing at the boy.

Malfoy's hand flew toward his wand, but Harry was too quick for him. He had drawn his own wand before Malfoy's fingers had even entered the pocket of his robes. Crabbe and Goyle hadn't even thought to move yet.

"Potter!" Snape's voice rang across the entrance hall; the man had emerged from a staircase leading up from the dungeons, and at the sight of him Harry felt a rush of anger beyond anything he felt towards Malfoy...So the man was truly loyal to Dumbledore; that was almost worse. It meant he'd failed at teaching Occlumency not due to malicious motives, but because he was too childish to get past his own Hogwarts rivalry that should have died so many years before. _Fool _Harry wanted to snarl, but held his tongue. It was his own idiocy that had led to Sirius's death, Harry reminded himself. He had to study, had to improve, had to get a handle on his damn temper. Snape had told him to practice, and he hadn't. Snape had _warned _him. It was his own fault.

"What are you doing, Potter?" said Snape coldly as ever, as he strode over to the four of them.

"I was defending myself, Professor, now I am walking away." Harry answered, before turning to where Ron and Hermione were approaching. He heard Snape's voice call something after him, and Profesor McGonagall interupt him, but Harry was soon too far into the crowd to hear the teacher's exchange. It didn't matter to him.

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"This sucks, mate." Ron stood, looking at Harry, though it didn't seem like he expected a response. They were saying goodbye before they crossed over Platform 9 ¾ to the Muggle world. It was always far too loud to say goodbye in the Muggle train station; they'd learned that second year. They stood in silence for a moment as swarms of students rushed ignorantly by them. Hermione looked ready to cry. Harry nodded when the silence bean to feel forced, and braced himself as Hermione rushed forward for another hug. He hugged her quickly and passed her to Ron, who grinned at him shyly. The two said goodbye again, and left together. Harry turned away to levitate his heavy trunk onto a waiting pushcart.

The trunk seemed to lift itself easily onto the cart. Harry blinked, then saw Fred and George approaching him, and knew they'd cast the spell with him.

"Heavy trunk, Harry?" Fred or George asked him, though for once there wasn't a hint of humor in the normally-light voice. Harry found himself mourning that too, before he even realized what they'd said. _They spelled it to look inside_, he realized, and raised wary eyes to them, cursing himself for being so constantly vulnerable. _A liability._ A cruelly incessant bit of thought reminded him. Harry focused his wary gaze on the twins, quietly imparting the message that he knew what they'd done and that he didn't like it.

"Don't worry Harry, no one will see through it now." The other added confidently. Harry was about to hush them until he realized that they were the last students to leave the platform. Harry shook his head. _Trust Fred and George to know how to hide things. Stolen books especially, I guess._ He tried to smile at them, though he feared the expression had failed terribly. One of them sighed slowly, and for once the somber sound didn't seem sarcastic at all.

"Harry, we were having a thought about your home situation." Harry wondered why they looked as grim as he about mentioning the Dursleys, then remembered his second year summer. They'd seen the bars on his windows, Vernon's rage, the locked door, the cat-flap. Harry rolled his head back to stare at the train station ceiling. _Damn, does everybody know?_ He thought he'd hidden the truth so well, but apparently it had slipped out over the years. _Damn. _

"We thought of something, you know, if things get…fired up out there, and you needed a bit of..umm…what's the word, Fred?" George started, the humorous glint in his eyes returning slowly.  
Fred looked around, held out a fist, and opened his hand. Harry flinched as a cylinder of fire rushed out of Fred's palm for a second with a heavy _whoosh_. The flames died instantly as he closed his hand.

"Persuasion." Fred supplied.

For the first time in what felt like months, Harry grinned. The expression looked malicious beneath his grim eyes. He saw Fred catch George's eyes, and George blinked once, as if in answer.

"Show me." Harry ordered, hoping they were not rethinking their offer of "persuasion". Fred opened his hand again, and revealed a handful of gray stone-like chips that looked like broken slate. He carefully dropped the remains and kicked them down into the Hogwarts Express tracks. George pulled a small jar out of nowhere and opened it for Harry. Inside were what looked like red pebbles. George selected three and handed the jar to Harry.

"Prototypes, you see." George explained.

"Fred's Fabulous Firestones" George supplied, holding the three out on his palm for Harry to examine. "They are supposed to disintegrate into a powder, and we're hoping to work on the flame's shape, and the sound effect, but for now they're all we've got."

"And right now you've got to us three to get any impressive reaction at all. That'll probably change too." Fred added. "So, for now at least, take at least three."

"Then, just crush them in a closed fist, and open." George closed his fist quickly, and opened his hand sideways. The flame burst onto the stationary train as the chips fell from his palm.

"The flame will stop after three seconds, so if you count right, you can close your fist and make it look like you're controlling it." Fred explained. "The fire won't burn anything, of course, but I'm sure you're muggles will be..thrilled." Suddenly his light voice went serious, and the humor in his eyes died out.

"Thank you." Harry supplied, trying to get his dead voice to express sincerity. "I've been planning to do something similar. This will help if the Dursleys need…convincing." Fred and George grinned back at him, though there was something intensely serious about their expressions.

"Take care of yourself, Harry." George advised as they turned their carts toward the brick wall separating Platform 9 ¾ from the muggle world.

"I will." Harry returned, his voice carrying a thousand angry words. Fred looked back and searched Harry's face with his eyes, before nodding once, and following his brother across the wall.  
Harry found his trolley deceptively light when he went to push it. He wished he'd thanked the twins for their help, especially upon learning that they'd used some kind of permanent lightening charm. Harry hadn't even known that such a thing existed. He'd have to learn that one, he noted.

As Harry crossed into the muggle world, he looked warily for his uncle, always half-expecting to find the platform empty. Instead he found a grouping he'd never have expected. Mr. Weasley, Lupin, and Mad-Eye of all people were gathered in front of his now clearly enraged uncle and ridiculously cowed-looking cousin. Harry approached, wondering what on earth the group would have to talk about.

"Are you threatening me, Sir?" Vernon was saying so loudly that a passerby actually turned to stare.

"Yes, I am." Said Mad-Eye, who seemed rather pleased that Vernon had grasped this fact so quickly.

"And do I look like the kind of man who can be intimidated?" Barked Vernon.

"Well.." Said Moody, pushing back his bowler hat to reveal his sinisterly revolving magical eye. Vernon leapt backwards in horror and collided painfully with a luggage trolley. "Yes, I have to say you do, Dursley." Mad-Eye turned away from Vernon to survey Harry. "So Potter…give us a shout if you need us. If we don't hear from you for three days in a row, we'll send someone along…"

Aunt Petunia whimpered piteously. It could not have been plainer that she was thinking of what the neighbors would say if they caught sight of these people marching up the garden path.

"Oh, I'm sure there'll be no need of that." Harry remarked, carefully keeping his hand away from the jar in his pocket. Moody turned both eyes on him, a silent 'you're sure?'.

"The muggles will not make trouble for me, I have no fear of that." Harry left that hanging, and turned to say goodbye to his clearly worried friends. He somehow could not find words to tell them how much it meant to him, to see them all ranged there, on his side. Instead he forced a smile, raised a hand in farewell, turned his trolley, and led the way out of the station toward the sunlit street, with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley hurrying along in his wake.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

Harry took the front passenger seat as soon as he reached the car. He'd never sat there in his life, but he wanted to send a clear message to the family. Vernon said nothing, though his hands and face were quivering with rage as he started the car. Once that image would have set Harry shuddering, but he couldn't muster up any reaction to it at all. Instead of terrifying, the furious drive to the Dursley's home just felt silent and awkward. Harry felt out of place in the front, but he didn't dare show his self-doubt, knowing they'd flay him alive for threatening him if they thought they would live through the experience. Harry glanced at Vernon's thin belt, and sat straighter, glad to feel the jar of firestones shift in his pocket.

He allowed the Dursleys to slam their way into the house on their own. _Bless you Weasley twins _Harry thought as he managed to lift his still-light trunk out of the car. He was able to carry it by hand into the Dursleys' home.

Vernon and Aunt Petunia were both waiting for him inside, looking furious. Harry lowered his trunk to the ground slowly, remembering a time when their flushed faces would have sent him running for cover. He opened the jar with a hand in his pocket, and gathered three of the firestones into his fist.

"Get into that kitchen, boy." Petunia snapped at him, though her horse-like face was almost as pale as Nearly Headless Nick. _She's trying to test me._

"No I don't believe I will. I have studying to do, you will both allow me to do it in peace." Harry felt a fierce determination settle over him, settling his body down so he could stand and face them calmly. He didn't feel brave exactly, facing them, he just knew that he had to study, had to be the weapon, and if that started here, then of course he faced them. It was a focused kind of feeling, and Harry felt the thick weight of grief in his stomach lesson a bit under it. Meanwhile Vernon was turning purple and his veins were sticking out of his neck like thick lines of bloody rope.

"YOU-WE-I WILL NOT BE THREATED IN MY OWN HOUSE!" He roared, spittle flying toward Harry.

"Not…intimidated, Vernon?" Harry tried to capture Snape's drawl. He came out with a pale imitation but his uncle didn't seem to notice. The man had gone from angry purple to terrorized white in a matter of seconds.

"You-you can't-not outside that school!" Vernon blubbered, suddenly sounding like his cowardly son.

"That _was_ true, last year. But I'm entering my sixth year now. I'm allowed to do _magic_ whenever I want." Harry threw the offending word in Vernon's face, wishing he could feel the satisfaction that the defiance would have given him years before.

"He's lying!" Petunia squeaked, shaking a finger towards Harry. "Seventeen, they have to be seventeen!"

"How much are you willing to bet on that?" Harry barely glanced at her before returning his gaze to his uncle. Vernon was quick to look away. Harry nodded and turned his back on the furious man to pick up his trunk, a clear challenge. His uncle didn't even move.

"Don't trouble yourself about me for dinner, Aunt Petunia. I won't be eating tonight. I wish only to be left alone." Harry ordered. The slender woman paled a few shades lighter and glanced at Vernon, but when the man stayed silent, she turned toward the kitchen. Harry walked past them both to lift his trunk up the stairs to his bedroom. He had over forty books to read, and he wanted all of them memorized and understood before the end of the summer.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

"Shit" Harry dropped his aching eyes into his hands and groaned. His head hurt too much; he wouldn't learn anything more until it stopped. That was normal though, the bigger problem was that he didn't have much more to learn from. He'd almost finished his last book on advanced 'protection charms', and he only had one book on advanced transfigurations left at all after that. Harry got up, knowing a change of scene would at least help his headache.

He stepped downstairs, listening to the house in a desperate attempt to learn where everyone was. The house creaked around him. The pipes gurgled. Paper rustled. A plate clinked; Vernon and Petunia were in the kitchen.

"Pass me that plate, won't you, Diddy?"

Harry checked his watch. It was 6:00, he hadn't even heard the door open when Vernon had come home. Harry was trying to master Mad-Eye's idea of 'constant vigilance'. He worked to make sure he always knew where the Dursleys were, even when he couldn't see them, by listening and learning how they walked and what they were doing to make the sounds that he could hear from his room. He'd be doing it for months now, and rarely lost track of them, but it grated at him that he'd get involved in something and become so damned vulnerable again. He'd been working on perfecting the sickly complex wand motion for a far more reliable spell similar to 'silencio' and had forgotten about doing anything else.

Harry walked downstairs and saw Aunt Petunia washing dishes. Vernon was squeezed into a chair beside the kitchen table, reading the paper. Dudley was sitting on the counter top, chewing on a carrot. _Petunia must have reinstated the diet_. Dudley did look a little thinner… maybe. Harry grabbed a dishtowel and joined his aunt at the sink to dry whatever she passed him.

"How was work, Vernon?" Petunia asked quietly as she passed Harry another plate, perhaps feeling awkward about standing next to Harry and not saying a word.

"Horrid. I was half exhausted the entire time and almost fell asleep in a critical meeting." The man barked, glaring at Harry as if it were his fault that Grunnings had started laying off employees to survive the quarter.

"Didn't you sleep?" Perunia asked. Harry looked back at Vernon, and saw that the man had tired streaks under his eyes. Vernon caught his eye, and immediately started quivering in fury.

"Sleep?" The man spat out. "Not a bloody wink! How'd anyone supposed to sleep in this god-damned house with a fucking freak screaming like a bitch at three in the morning?" Vernon spat, glaring at Harry. Petunia threw a scared glance at Harry, as if expecting the boy to turn them all into cattle at the slightest provocation.

"Now, Vernon…" She warned, darting her eyes between her husband and nephew. In an instant, Vernon was standing up and furious.

"Don't _now _me, Petunia." Vernon growled, though he still faced Harry like he was yelling at him, though he evidently didn't dare to actually do it.

Harry carefully put down the plate he'd been drying and put a hand into his pocket. Vernon had been practically vibrating with rage through the entire summer. Every time Harry had spoken the man would turn purple with rage, then white with fear, only to steadily build back to purple again when he realized he couldn't do anything to his nephew anymore. In truth Harry was impressed that the man had gone two months already without exploding, though evidently the little control Vernon had kept over his temper had finally snapped.

"THIS WAS YOUR IDEA! YOUR BLOODY IDEA TO ACCEPT THIS FUCKING MISTAKE BABY INTO MY HOUSE!" Vernon tore his chair to the floor with one hand as he roared at Harry.

"Dad-" Dudley started quietly, trying to shuffle further back on the countertop.

"Don-t" Petunia warned Dudley quickly.

"Don't?" Vernon sputtered incredulously, his mustache swinging back and forth as it always did when he was agitated. "Don't? What are you telling me what to do?" He quieted in his disbelief, but his voice quickly grew to a shout again. "I WILL NOT TAKE ANY MORE ORDERS IN MY OWN HOUSE! I WON'T FUCKING TAKE IT-" Vernon stomped across the kitchen, with his face sweating and a thick fist clenched at his side. Harry stepped forward sharply, matching his uncle's challenging gaze, but the man didn't stop tromping towards him. Without further warning Harry pulled out the handful of firestones he kept in his pocket and crushed them in a loud clap between his palms. A column of fire rushed up from between his hands, past his face and to the ceiling. The _whoosh _from the flames almost drowned out Petunia's startled scream, but not quite.

The fire died out quickly, leaving nothing but a loose pile of grey chips on the floor. The room was completely silent in its wake.

"Vernon, go take a drive." Harry ordered, staring into Vernon's flushed face. The man glared at him. "Go, now." He repeated, staring into his uncle's fierce expression. The man's glare wasn't even intimidating anymore, Harry realized. He'd seen too much actual horror to be frightened by a man he could kill with two words. Vernon's brute strength paled beneath magic's power. In a display of unprecedented wisdom, the muggle obeyed.

The kitchen was horribly silent after Vernon slammed his way out of the house. Harry kicked the pile of chips out of his way and returned to drying plates.

"Mum, what just happened?" Dudley stuttered out.

"Harry did you-know-what, Dudley. His abnormality." Petunia passed a plate to Harry gently as if she hadn't just insulted him. Harry suppressed a sigh, but took the plate. He forced himself to join the Dursley's for at least one meal a day, and spend his breaks with them, for exactly this reason. Petunia, for some inexplicable reason, hated it if Harry volunteered to help her, so he did his best to do so. He had to learn how to control his temper, and Dursley-baiting, while unpleasant, was the perfect practice. It was odd this time though, Dudley had grown up around his father screaming at Harry, but somehow the boy looked bothered by it now.

"No I mean Dad-"

"Daddy's mad because Harry is in our house, Diddy-kins. " she said as if speaking to a younger child, though her shaking hands belied her calm tone.

"Yeah." Dudley answered. Harry was impressed to hear the boy's rudeness, hoping Dudley was finally developing an attitude. Duley slid his way off of the countertop suddenly and marched outside. Harry quickly finished drying the plate in his hands and followed. His headache was still too strong for him to learn anything so Harry decided to deal with his cousin despite how much it grated to be away from his work routine.

The boy was walking toward the park.

"Dudley!" Harry called out, unwilling to stray far from the house. He didn't know where the wards ended that would alert the Ministry that he'd left, but he was convinced that Fudge would have placed them. He'd spent the entire summer perfectly aware that the Ministry and the Order were watching, 'protecting' him from harm. Dudley turned and shuffled back to him.

"Is it ever like this when I'm gone?" Harry asked urgently, wondering what he would do about it if so. Dudley and Petunia were not prepared for Vernon's rages.

"No." Dudley muttered. "Just when you're here."

Harry nodded, relieved, but wondered how much longer his farce would last with the Dursleys. He's just shown 'his' magic for the first time all summer, but now that he had, Harry worried that they'd wonder if he could do anything more than columns of heat-less fire. Harry's headache pounded, but he forced himself to keep a blank face and pay attention to his cousin.

"It's not right for Dad to hit you like he does, is it?" Dudley muttered, almost resembling a house-elf with his large pale eyes staring expectantly at Harry.

"He doesn't anymore." Harry answered.

"Yeah I guess not." Dudley muttered, staring past Harry's shoulder towards his house. "How'd you do that?" He asked, focusing back on Harry and waving a hand about as if that explained everything.

"What, magic?" Harry saw Dudley flush at the word.

"Yeah." Dudley replied, glancing around as if looking for an eavesdropping neighbor. Harry knew they'd never be able see anyone who was truly eavesdropping, but still had to suppress the reaction to follow suit and scan the hydrangeas for Privet Drive's share of snooping Death Eaters.

"It's easy, usually." Harry answered, thinking about the wonder he'd felt in his first charms class, lifting a feather. "It doesn't do everything though." He added sadly, hating that every thought about magic led back to Sirius.

"Look, I've got to get back to work." Harry apologized, glancing toward the house.

"What are you studying so hard for, anyway?" _Damn, be careful, anyone could be listening. _

"I've got my N.E. this year--these big wizarding tests that everyone's got to take in their sixth year at my school." Harry explained, realizing that he was already set to ace them all.

In two months he'd already gotten far past what Hogwarts taught, though he knew his study routine would be highly disrupted by his 7th year classes. He had nothing to distract him at the Dursleys, and had used that fact to race through his old textbooks and into the materials he'd stolen from the library. Again Harry found himself wondering how much he would know if Dumbledore had started him learning years before, though he didn't think he'd have been able to understand the same intense regimen as a first year. He spent his entire day, every day, studying, except for an hour of break periods that he took because he could not learn without them, and the three hours he grudgingly allowed for sleep. The schedule had never even felt difficult for him, though he doubted he'd have felt the same way four years before. As always, he studied when he didn't have anything better to do. The only difference now was that he'd realised there _was_ nothing better to do, than study and maybe be able to protect his friends some day.

"What happened to you this year?" Dudley asked unexpectedly. _What, you're observant now? _Harry had to reign down on his temper that told him to roar at Dudley for reminding him of how much his life sucked right then.

Harry scanned Dudley's sincere face, wondering how much personal information he wanted to give away. He couldn't ignore the memory of Dudley mocking his nightmares about Cedric just the year before.

"I won't make fun of you or anything." His cousin promised.

"Oh? What changed?" _Damn _Harry hadn't wanted to sound that sarcastic. He reminded himself to work harder on his speech, to hide his damn emotions for once.

"Last summer." Dudley answered, apparently oblivious to Harry's tone. "You saved my life, I think. With those Demoniter thingys?"

"Dementors, and it's complicated. Dementors don't exactly kill."

"It felt like I was dying" Dudley contested, with an almost comical shudder.

"Dementors suck energy." Harry explained with a shrug. "Living takes energy, to grow and breathe and think. You thought you were dying because your body felt itself losing energy so quickly, like you were bleeding out, but it's different with Dementors. They can specify what type of energy it takes to be happy, and they consume that, which means you can still grow and breathe, but you can't feel anything like happiness around them. And if they Kiss you, you can't think of anything beyond misery. Either way, yes you were close to that when I magicked them off you." Harry glanced at Dudley, to see the boy turning white with fear. "You wouldn't have died, but you wouldn't have exactly lived through it either." He explained, thinking over the book on magical energy control that had touched on the subject. The book discussed why people who could Occlude could protect themselves from Dementors, but had never explained how anyone would go about _doing _that.

Harry ran a hand through his hair. He still hadn't gotten anywhere with Occlumency. He tried to meditate every night, but the closest he'd ever gotten to clearing his mind was to concentrate on one thing intensely, but he didn't think an intensely detailed image of fire was going to keep Voldemort from his mind for long. It was pretty, certainly, and it had helped Harry keep himself calm in the worst moments at the Dursleys, but that wasn't good enough.

"And you stopped that from happening?" Dudley asked, looking completely nauseated.

"Yes, which incidentally reminds me that I have to get back to-"

"And I set Dad on you." Dudley recalled, sounding haunted, and quickly turning green.

Harry closed his eyes, trying to keep his face blank as he thought back to that disaster. Vernon has been angrier that night than Harry had ever seen him. He'd chased Harry up to his room, knotted his hands to the window bars with his tie and taken off his belt to give Harry the worst beating of his life. Somehow in Vernon's anger he'd even forgotten to close the window to drown out Harry's screams. They'd had to lie to the neighbors the next day, something about Dudley watching horror films with the volume too loud.

They'd locked him in his room after, with nothing more for him than a steady stream of meals shoved through the cat-flap. He hadn't been allowed out for days. Parts of his room still smelled of that horrid combination of blood, feces and infection.

"You were the one to give me food!" Harry realized aloud.

"Yeah, I.. sort of figured it all out afterwards, that you'd been yelling the whole time, and had sounded sorta…scared too." Dudley explained, staring at his shoes.

"So what _did _happen this year?" Dudley asked, sounding like he wanted his voice to be brewed in sympathy, though he ended up sounding like Petunia baby-talking.

Harry closed his eyes again, and threw his head back towards the sky, trying to focus on keeping his temper checked and his face expressionless.

"I really don't want to talk about it." He replied slowly.

"Oh. Okay."

The two stood in silence, as if waiting to have something more to talk about. Harry spent the time with his eyes still closed, trying to capture an image of the surrounding area; he'd found that helped him calm down too. Whistling leaves, Dudley's harsh breathing, a screen door slamming, the smell of cut grass and pesticides. So intensely _muggle_. Harry opened his eyes at the sound of a familiar, but ill-fitting sound. A sort of swaying swish sound in step with the clicking of dress-shoes.

Harry turned around to see a sight that in a different year would have sent him running in joy. Dumbledore was walking passively up Privet Drive, wearing his full formal wizarding robes as if convinced that the muggles wouldn't notice. Or that if they did, they wouldn't remember.

"Harry, my boy." Dumbledore greeted as he approached, a joyous grin stretching his wizened face. Harry felt Dudley try to hide behind him, and allowed it.

"Hello, Professor." Harry said, as politely as he could manage. Dumbledore must have seen through it though, for his light smile sank slightly.

"How are you, my boy?" The headmaster asked sincerely.

"I'm grieving, professor." Harry replied, glancing back towards Dudley and trusting that Dumbledore would pick up that he didn't want the conversation to get any more personal in front of the muggle. For once, Harry was grateful that his cousin was around.

"May I ask why you are visiting Privet Drive?" Harry prompted. The headmaster nodded slightly, almost like he was accepting some subtle request from Harry, though Harry had no idea what subliminal message Dumbledore would be replying to.

"I've got a favor to ask you of, Harry." The headmaster started. Harry matched the Professor's gaze seriously.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Well, as you know, Hogwarts needs a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. I have been working for months now to get a Mr. Horace Slughorn to come out of retirement, but he has refused me. He wishes to stay in hiding you see, though I have convinced him repeatedly that he would be quite safe at Hogwarts."

"Why do you need me?" Harry asked, knowing that despite all he'd learned in the summer months, he was not ready to help the great wizard in anything real. Harry almost itched to get back to his last few books. He was wasting time again, and could hardly stand the feeling.

"Well you see, I was hoping to show Slughorn that he could do great things at Hogwarts. We are becoming quite desperate for a teacher, and I've known for years now that Slughorn has a bit of an affinity for the famous and powerful."

Harry felt a bit of annoyance rumble beneath his grief.

"No professor, I will not go with you for that." Harry responded, wanting to scream at the thought of wasting so much time to visit the coward. Slughorn sounded quite a bit like Lockhart, and Harry found himself wondering how Dumbledore could be so terrible at staffing the school that a fifteen year old muggle-born boy had made a better Defense teacher than Dumbledore could find.

"Harry, my boy-"

"I will not be _used_, professor." Harry enunciated. He felt his annoyance roar up. It felt wonderful. His rushed thoughts and the weight in his stomach lightened, and he could think about something _different, _something irrelevant to Sirius. The feeling didn't last, and in a second all Harry could feel was his deep-set determination to get back to work.

"Excuse me, Professor." Harry apologized, and felt Dudley trembling behind him.

"Don't worry my boy, I do say I've seen worse." Dumbledore commented, though Harry wasn't sure which boy he was talking to.

Harry realized that he should feel embarrassed, thinking back to his tantrum in Dumbledore's office, but the shame didn't come back with the memory. He was a child then, and he was changing. He could trust his temper now, and that would never happen again, so it didn't matter.

"Thank you for visiting, Professor." Harry responded carefully, before turning towards Number 4, Privet Drive.

"Harry, I'm not just asking you for help with Slughorn, you know. I can apparate you to the Weasleys on my way out; they would be overjoyed to see you." Dumbledore offered.

Harry knew he should want to leave for the Burrow, but for the first time in his life, the Dursley's house seemed like a better option for him. The images he brought up of the hectic and casual home that he loved all looked horridly distracting.

"No, thank you." Harry answered, when he realized that Dumbledore was waiting for something.

"You want to stay here?" Dumbledore asked, sounding surprised, though perfectly polite, and flickered his eyes from Harry to the larger boy quaking behind him.

"I'm going to go get some…er..lemonade." Dudley stuttered, before sprinting off towards the house.

"Tactful." Dumbledore commented, without a drop of sarcasm in his voice, though his eyes twinkled with amusement as he observed Dudley's flight.

"You wish to remain here, Harry?" The headmaster repeated, looking strangely pleased.

"Yes sir, thank you." Harry replied politely, hiding his exasperation. His headache was mostly gone; he had no reason to be outside now.

"Well, that's excellent then." Dumbledore said with the same pleased smile. _He thinks I'm happy here now._ Harry concluded, feeling that same rumble of annoyance again, coupled with a kind of quiet disappointment. Dumbledore was supposed to be so wise, his perfect mentor. Harry shook his head at his childish thoughts, and focused himself. It didn't matter that Dumbledore couldn't accept that Harry's family life always sucked. Harry could handle the truth on his own. Whatever 'abusive' experiences he'd had growing up paled before the horror of Cedric's quick death, and getting crucio'd, and watching Voldemort crawl back to life. The Dursley's concept of 'cruelty' was trifling in comparison. Harry turned himself back to the Headmaster and thanked the man again for visiting.

Dudley was sitting cross-legged on his bed by the time Harry returned to his room. Harry stopped in surprise in the doorway, and raised an eyebrow.

"I..er..He.." Dudley tried.

"Think, then speak." Harry suggested, heading towards his trunk to fetch his last book. He'd already covered everything from shielding spells to advanced transfigurations, and he knew understood relatively well now, but he could barely understand how he'd managed to survive the graveyard meeting without a trace of knowledge on how to defend himself. Perhaps due to Hogwarts' tendency to have Death Eaters and fools for Defense teachers, Harry hadn't even heard of half the spells the books covered. Hogwarts had never taught him even the most basic understanding of what magic was and what it could do, which worried Harry even further about Dumbledore. The man had surely once been the best wizard of his day, but his day had past, and the headmaster was making so many mistakes now.

Harry hated staying in the Dursley's home, knowing the headmaster was depending on the blood wards to protect him. Blood-wards were strong, and he'd studied them enough to trust that Voldemort couldn't waltz through the front door despite having shared his blood, but they only lasted as long as Petunia was alive. Harry could hardly imagine the Order trailing after Petunia her entire life, casting protection charms around her every time she went out to the supermarket.

Harry itched to use the charms he'd learned, to protect himself if nothing else. He was beginning to trust in his ability to keep himself safe, as long as he didn't have to fight too many Death-Eaters at once. Harry hated knowing so many spells that would make the Dursley house just as safe as Grimmauld Place, but not being 'authorized' to cast them. He didn't dare break the law about underage magic again, but nor did he dare trust the Order to protect him; they'd failed five years in a row and he wasn't sure that he'd survive any more mistakes that sent him into one-to-one duels with Voldemort.

Still, Harry was pretty sure he'd be able to walk down Knockturn Alley, screaming his own name, without a single curse getting through his defenses. He'd know better if he could practice each spell with his wand though. So far he'd been copying each movement with his pencil until he could throw out a string of defensive charms at a moment's notice, without barely needing to think about which spells he wanted to use. He felt a bit safer now, but he still found himself stretching his awareness beyond the Dursley home, trying to listen for Death Eaters or Dementors sliding through the suburban neighborhood.

"I was er..avoiding you-know-who" Dudley answered finally.

Harry had to think back about their conversation, wondering when Dudley had learned about the Dark Lord, before he remembered that Dudley was talking about Dumbledore in the Dursley's weird way of referring to magic.

"Can I stay?" Dudley asked. Harry looked up, surprised out of his thoughts.

"Just don't touch anything or distract me." Harry replied, looking over his books to make sure that he remembered each thoroughly.

"Shit." Harry swore after recognising each volume in turn, and scanning through his mind over the spells he'd learned in each subject.

"What's wrong?" Dudley responded predictably.

"I'm running out of books." Hary answered, sitting back on his heels. The thirty books had covered advanced spells but Voldemort was more than an "advanced" wizard. Advanced wasn't good enough, not when he needed to be stronger than the Dark Lord. Harry swore. Even with better books, there was no way he could improve his skills much further without the use of his wand, and there was no doubt his wand was being closely monitored. The ministry might like him again, but there was no way Fudge would pass up a chance at blackmail, and another Disciplinary Hearing would waste too much time. _Bloody ministry is going to lose us this war. _

"So what are you going to do?" Dudley asked.

"Buy some new books." Harry decided aloud. _Damn it! People are listening. Will I ever stop being a fool? _He cursed himself as soon as the words left his lips. He was supposed to be _vigilant, _not announcing his every plan to the Death Eating passerby. _Damn it!_

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The trip took planning. He knew he had to go to Knockturn alley, and he had a guess as to where to go once he was there, but _getting there_ was set to be a problem. After his (_hair-brained_) attempt to run away in third year, the Ministry was sure to have wards over the Dursleys' house, piled on top of the Order's own manner of watching him. Harry figured everything would go much smoother if he traveled to the local black market without his friendly neighborhood stalkers, but actually _managing _that made everything more complicated. He knew how to confuse and/or cancel the monitoring wards, but he couldn't do that without using his wand, and as soon as he used his wand he'd have even more Ministry wizards out searching for him.

The best option Harry could think of was to leave the house, accept alerting everyone's monitoring wards, but disappear into muggle London before either group could catch up to him. Then of course, he could never go back, but if he planned everything correctly, that wouldn't be a problem. As long as he brought his Gringotts key with him he could buy anything he needed. Every time he took a break from studying, he spent going over what he knew about magical wards, and thinking about ways to lose any wizard trying to follow him. By the time he had it properly figured out, he'd mastered the Transfiguration book, and had truly nothing more to study, and nothing more to pack.

He had to assume that the Order members could and did hear everything that happened in the house, but he guessed from his studies that they could not see anything beyond the front door. Most sight advancement charms were ridiculously difficult to spell correctly, and demanded constant monitoring, and the simpler spells would not be able to overthrow the Blood-Ward's protection of the house. It was unlikely that the Ministry had the competence to manage it, and Harry assumed from the fact that wizards had never broken into the Dursley's home and dragged Vernon away from their Boy-Who-Lived, that the Order had never monitored inside the house too closely either. Even with the assumption that neither the Order nor the Ministry were watching him inside the house, Harry was careful to pack at 4 in the morning. He was used to the quiet morning; it was the best time to study. He hated sacrificing his study time, and itched to get back to work, but knew he first had to get away from . Neither the Ministry nor Dumbledore could handle what he was learning, and by the time he had nothing left to learn, he had a plan to escape them both.

Harry started packing that night by moving one of Dudley's old backpacks from the attic into his closet, and preparing it with his invisibility cloak, a pair of dress robes, his Gringott's key, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. His wand he kept tucked into his jeans.

The only thing he regretted having to leave behind were his studying cards. The notecards were how he kept up on old material. He'd shuffle the cards, and throw them down one by one. Each had a specific spell name written on both sides. If a card landed lined-side up, he 'cast' the written spell, using his pencil as a wand. If the card landed white-side up, he cast a counter-spell. He'd started with a large pile of all the spells Hogwarts had taught him, and wouldn't consider any new material mastered until he could shuffle the new spells in with his old, and spin through them just as quickly. He'd created dozens of new cards with every book he read, and he liked how much more difficult and useful the exercise was getting, but there were too many of the cards to transport them easily. He locked them in his trunk with his books.

Harry carefully locked his books in his trunk. Hopefully, when Ministry or Order wizards realized that he was gone, they'd figure he was that same angry 13 year old that jumped onto a random Knight bus, and would simply take his trunk to Dumbledore without looking inside. The danger with leaving his books at # 4 Privet Drive was that Ministry officials would look inside and realize that Harry Potter was working hard on something, and would start to wonder what. However every scheme that he'd come up with to bring all of the books with him just sounded too complicated to work.

It was easier to plan the escape without his books. Hopefully, since he was not carrying anything but a backpack, none of the people 'protecting' him would suspect that he was running away until it was too late, though Harry doubted far he'd get after the idiotic comment he'd made the week before.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Dear lovely readers, due to a review by ArgentRoseSableWolf (Thank you Wolf!), I went back over chapter one. So, just in case you don't spend all day rereading random fanfic chapters, I'll tell you here-- I have decided to agree with said friendly reviewer, and have reworked the conversation with Draco that occurred in chapter 1 -- it now follows canon. So, Draco's an ass. Back to the fic:

.

.

&&&&&&&&&&&&

_Dear Uncle Vernon,_

_Do not look up, speak, or stop reading until you've finished this letter. I am leaving, and if you work with me, you may never have to see me again. If you speak out of turn, you may never speak again. To avoid any misunderstandings, I will clarify; That was a threat. You will not speak unless you are mentioning our sight-seeing visit to London today. Do not be alarmed; you are not going anywhere. You are going to drive Dudley, Aunt Petunia and I to the train station. We will all get out. I will all go to the bathroom. After twenty minutes waiting outside, you may leave, and take them home. Petunia and Dudley have already been informed. You may now speak; Remember my warnings._

Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley were all sitting with their individual letters, so white with fear that it looked like three ghosts had taken their places at the kitchen table. Harry sighed, and wrote another note down to pass into the center of the table. _Say something about the trip to London._

"I'm looking forward to seeing the Tower, aren't you, Vernon?" Petunia started, sounding forced.

"Yeah, Petunia, I think we're all looking forward to seeing the bloody Tower. I'm sure today it'll look so much better than it looked _last_ time we saw the bloody thing, or the time before that." Vernon growled.

"We had to write about our favorite city in English class, and I wrote about _London_." Dudley lied proudly. Harry threw a palm over his eyes, suppressing his annoyance. Vernon sounded the most legitimate out of all of them. He'd wanted to leave them behind, they were almost doomed to get him caught, but unfortunately they were also the only chance he had at doing it at all.

Harry nodded once to Petunia, and swung his backpack over his shoulder. They all had backpacks packed; He'd made each of them before they'd woken up. Now it was time for the harder part;

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

_The worst part is not knowing if this is working or not_, Harry thought as Vernon bought train tickets at the King's Cross train-station. The Dursley family was clustered away from Harry, practically emanating fear from every pore, but Harry didn't worry highly about their acting skills. He'd made sure they arrived during the train station rush hour, muggles were pressing in on them from every side. He probably didn't even need half of his escape plans; Harry was almost certain he could disappear into the crowd and wander around the station for hours without any of the wizards catching up to him, but there wasn't any reason to take the chance.

It was almost impossible to keep himself from glancing around the crowd, looking for wizards as they crossed through the station. Vernon was vibrating with anger again, probably at the expense for the tickets, but as long as he didn't explode loudly, Harry didn't care. They reached the waiting area outside their platform quickly, and Harry gestured for them to sit down. They obeyed.

"Hey Uncle Vernon, I'm gunna go to the bathroom, alright?" Harry asked as casually as he could. Uncle Vernon paled. "Oh, but I don't know if they charge, crap. Do you think you could lend me some money?" Harry asked, knowing he was treading on thin ice to keep the man from shouting at him. That would undoubtedly ruin everything.

The Dursleys all gaped at him at the request. Harry kept his face blank, except to raise a single eyebrow at Vernon's now-furious face. The man took out his wallet to count out a bill, and Harry threw his palm out.

"Thanks." He said casually. Vernon got the message surprisingly quickly, and handed his nephew the thick wallet. Harry nodded at him, and walked to the bathroom, convinced they would leave before the requested twenty minutes ended.

Once he made it to a stall, Harry knew he had to act fast. He ripped open his backpack and threw his invisibility cloak over himself, and rushed out the stall. With only one person under the garment, it was possible to run beneath it, but the train station was too crowded for that. Harry did his best to run along the walls and between muggles without hitting anyone. It was hard to remember to keep his feet carefully under the cloak, and he could only pray he'd managed it all the way to the station's muggle clothing store.

Shoplifting was ridiculously easy for the invisible, Harry noted, as he carefully moved a pair of muggle slacks under his cloak while the attendant wasn't looking. The security cameras were sure to have some wildly odd data, but Harry would be long gone by the time anyone noticed. He was in a metro bus in less than a minute.

It turned out to be almost impossible to fit himself invisible into a rush hour metro bus with a backpack and a full set of clothing in his arms. He hadn't planned for the rush of people that quickly pressed him into a corner of the metro car, and gave him no way to escape without bodily pushing them all aside.

A businessman in front of him was slowly getting herded back further into Harry's corner. Harry noticed the problem, but was entirely unable to do anything about it, despite the magical options that popped into his brain. At the next metro stop the man tried to step back again and both stepped on Harry's foot and elbowed him in the chest accidentally. Harry held his breath, waiting for the muggle to make a scene, but instead the man just excused himself quietly, and continued staring forward toward the door.

Harry blinked, thinking at first that the man was a wizard and perfectly aware that there was someone behind him. Then he realized the man was just too used to metros, and had probably run into people he hadn't noticed hundreds of times before; so often that he didn't even notice if the person in question didn't seem to exist.

Harry's heart was pounding at him by the time the metro had cleared enough for Harry to be able to leave through the sliding doors without anyone noticing. Doubly careful to keep his cloak down, he jogged through the crowd to a random bathroom.

Harry was disgusted by his next plan, but hadn't thought of anything better despite a week of brain-storming. He flushed the toilet twice, and poured his entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide into the presumably-filthy water bowl. Kneeling on the floor and holding his breath, Harry carefully dunked his black hair into the noxious chemical. He remembered his eyebrows too, and carefully scooped up palmfuls of the water to bathe over his face. He flushed the toilet as often as he could without drawing attention to his stall, and dunked his head and face again in the 'clean' water.

He used his shirt to dry his hair, and changed into the stolen clothing. There were 'permanent' shoplift-protection tags to be taken off, but they weren't anywhere obvious. He'd been careful about that when he'd picked it all out.

He stepped out of the bathroom, with shockingly white hair. He blessed the summer's practice that kept his face neutral as he took in the strange albino look, and drew his fingers through drying hair. He had done his best to dress himself like a rich prat, with a white polo over expensive black slacks and dress shoes. Harry knew that his white hair would draw people's attention to him, and hoped the clothing would at least keep anyone from associating what they saw with Harry Potter.

Harry walked calmly from the bathroom, his invisibility cloak, study cards, and wizarding dress robes shoved into a bland-looking shoulder bag he'd stolen. His backpack, now filled with his clothing and the empty peroxide bottle, was too big to fit in the bathroom trashcans. Harry forced himself to keep a confident but slow stride, even though his instincts screamed at him to sprint through the station.

Now more than ever, he had to move quickly, but first he had to find out where he was in the metro grid, after taking two metros at random. Harry found his route to a small metro stop on Charing Cross road, and threw out his backpack in an out of the way trashcan on the way to the platform.

Harry stepped out of Leicester Square metro station onto Charing Cross road, and forced himself to walk calmly up to the Leaky Caldron. It was the exact place where Fudge had found him the first time he'd run away, but Harry didn't know of any other entrance to the wizarding world. His hope was that he'd lost the Ministry and Order officials fast enough that they wouldn't know to look for him at the Leaky Caldron yet. He knew their first instinct would be to blame his disappearance on the Death Eaters, and would need time to realize that he hadn't been abducted but had in fact run away, and would therefore need to cross through brick wall behind the bar.

Harry forced himself not to hold his breath as he found the small door between the large muggle book shop and the record store. Harry patted his white hair down over his scar and strengthened his blank expression, before stepping confidently into the pub.

It was extremely anticlimactic. Tom barely even looked up from his bar as Harry walked through. Harry kept his face blank and reached the grassy clearing behind the pub alone. Then he had to worry again. He knew that opening the archway was a benign magical process, like being able to see the Leaky Caldron around the anti-muggle wards, the ministry _couldn't _track it, but still, he worried about the wards around his wand as he tapped out the pattern on the brick above the trashcan as he'd learned from Hagrid on his first trip to the Wizarding World.

Fudge was not on the other side of the wall either. Harry almost smiled he was so relieved. He walked quietly to the changing area, a set place for wizards to change between muggle and wizarding garb. Usually wizards would just use a spell, but the changing area was always packed with underage wizards who needed to cross between their world and muggle London. Harry stored his muggle clothing in his shoulder bag, and strode into Diagon Alley, looking for all intents and purposes like a strikingly white-haired pureblood in formal robes. _Almost look like a Malfoy, really._Harry noted, as he picked his way down towards Gringotts Bank.

The bank looked smaller than usual to Harry. It was still a huge marble building stretching far above and below any of the nearby shops, but it wasn't larger than life like when he was a first year. He knew the magic that allowed the huge interior room to fit into the smaller exterior walls, and had a few guesses as to how the impossibly long tunnels were created. That made the building seem smaller somehow, though Harry still found himself in awe of it as he entered through the stone doors. The spells the construction used were extraordinary, and Harry suspected there were dozens of charms around the building that he'd still never even heard of.

The long-fingered goblins were at work as always on high stools behind the long counter. Harry stepped quickly up to the same counter Hagrid had used in Harry's first visit to the bank. He could see over the counter easily now, Harry noted with surprise.

"Good morning" Harry greeted. The same goblin as always looked up from across the counter and put his long feather down.

"I'd like to make a withdrawal from my vault, please" Harry requested, placing his key halfway over the counter. The goblin nodded sagely and picked up the key to inspect it carefully.

"Everything seems to be in order, Mr. Potter. I will have someone to take you down to your vault." He replied slowly, apparently recognizing Harry from his key, rather than his scar, for Harry's paper-white hair easily covered the distinguishing mark .

"Crankbait" The goblin called slightly as he handed Harry's key to a waiting attendant behind the counter.

Crankbait led Harry down a different door from the last time Harry had visited his vault. Every visit they entered the cavern down a different cart track. At the moment though, Harry couldn't interest himself in it. The further down the tracks brought him beneath London, the more trapped he felt.

If the goblin were to betray him, Harry realized, he simply did not yet have the magical skills to get himself back to the surface. With a simple wrong turn, the goblin could manage what the Dark Lord had yet to.

_I should have thought more before getting into this cart _Harry thought too late, as he plunged down the tracks. He should have discussed possibilities of having his gold brought up to him, rather than be sent careening into the depths of the earth. Surely Bellatrix Lestrange did not subject herself to the cart's infernal speed or the cold of being miles underground.

The cart stopped as always in front of his vault, and carefully opened the vault door with its key. The vault opened, and galleons literally poured out over Harry's feet. The vault was literally filled to the top, and it seemed far more organized than usual, like someone had had to carefully pile the galleons to get them all to fit at all. Feeling a fool, Harry took a small bag the goblin handed him, and collected the gold off the floor.

"Might I suggest a high-security vault, sir?" The goblin mentioned blandly.

"Later, sir, thank you." Harry noted. He'd entirely forgotten that the Black vaults' contents had all been entrusted to him. He'd already had a sick amount of money, but as Harry stared at the large vault piled high with gold he realized that he'd probably never have to worry about money again, for anything, a fact that gave him a large amount of power. _Ironic if the power to vanquish the Dark Lord was the pooled galleons of two large Gringotts vaults. _

Harry felt like he was asking for a gold avalanche by taking coins from the bottom of the enormous pile, but didn't see many other options. He filled his brown bag and tied it with a pile of leather straps he'd seen stuck just inside his vault's door, presumably stored for that exact purpose. Harry felt strange, wondering which of his parents had decided to put them there.

"Do you have a quick method for counting out a thousand galleons, sir?" Harry asked the goblin once he'd finished filling up his personal bag of gold. The goblin didn't even blink at the huge amount.

"If I may, sir?" Asked the goblin, gesturing to a pile of leather bags inside the vault that Harry hadn't even noticed. Harry stretched an arm into his vault and grabbed a bag to pass to the goblin. By the time Harry had fully turned back around, the goblin was handing the bag back, full of galleons. _The goblins can summon objects from inside Gringotts_, Harry noticed uncomfortably. _And do wandless magic!_ Harry realized, searching the goblin for any trace of a wand.

Harry glanced inside the leather pouch to see a huge pile of gold coins.

"Wow, a thousand doesn't look like much." Harry noticed aloud, wondering if he should withdraw more.

"The bag is spelled, sir." The goblin answered, without a condescending note in his voice. Harry found himself liking the succinct goblin more and more.

"Shouldn't this much gold be heavy?" Harry asked, curious at how he was even able to lift three thousand of the large coins, not to mention the uncounted bag of coins in his other hand.

"The bag is spelled, sir." The goblin repeated, making Harry feel even more the fool. Harry nodded quietly, suddenly glad that he was alone.

"Oh. Can you get me another thousand?" Harry asked, pulling out another of the leather bags. The goblin complied quickly, without a wand.

"All finished sir?" The goblin asked as Harry stepped away from his vault to push his three Gringotts bags into the bottom of his shoulder bag. Harry nodded when he was finished, and the goblin brought them careening back towards the surface.

Harry stepped out of the caverns feeling like he'd dodged a killing curse. He hated that he was still so foolish, and getting into a cart alone with a creature he wasn't necessarily able to trust had been a stupid decision. He hadn't even really thought about it. Harry was starting to understand why Mad-Eye had always reminded the Order about constant vigilance; it was simply so easy to forget.

Harry headed first to the exchange desk where he'd seen Hermione's parents exchanging pounds to galleons in their second year. He waited his turn in line and passed the goblin the smallest of his three bags, asking for half of the gold in muggle. Harry hardly knew what to do with himself when the goblin handed him back seven hundred pounds and a significantly lighter bag. Harry tried to wrap his mind around the huge pile of gold he'd seen in his vault, and decided it would have to make him a millionaire, at least. Harry thanked the goblin as if handling the large amounts of money was a normal practice for him, and returned the converted money to the bottom of his shoulder bag.

For some reason Harry felt far safer in Diagon Alley with the slight weight of his gold pulling on his shoulder. It was good to know he could afford a room in any of the inns he passed, if he required a place to sleep or hide, though he was smarter than to try and hide on DiagonAlley. He wanted to stay in hiding for the rest of the summer, and knew that it was going to be more complicated than renting a flat above Gladrag's Wizard Ware.

Harry forced his mind back onto his current plan. He found Knockturn Alley easily; it was only a turn away from Gringotts. He knew not to dawdle outside of it like a child waiting for someone to lead him through the dingy streets, the way he had the first time when he'd so quickly wandered into the bad side of wizarding London.

Harry found Knockturn alley almost as anticlimactic as entering the Leaky Cauldron had been. The more Harry saw of the notorious alleyway the more it seemed like any of the other shady parts of London. He made sure not to bother anyone and to keep his eyes to himself, and the crowd around him did him the same courtesy.

Harry found Burgin and Burkes without trouble. He remembered the store from his floo accident in second year. Even at twelve years old he'd understood that the store sold illegal goods. He'd never have thought that only three years later he would be returning, hoping that the store was indeed an extension of the magical black market.

Harry figured his best hope to avoid getting cheated was to avoid talking with the man more than strictly necessary. He hoped that fear of the unknown would keep the man in line, that if the man had no idea what type of wizard he was dealing with, he would deal fairly.

Harry pulled one of the leather bags of gold into his hand as he strode into the store. As confidently as he could, he planted the gold on the grimy counter-top in front of an oily-looking man. Harry hoped the distinct jingling of shifting coins would negate the need for any further conversations. The dealer ran his wand down the side of the spelled bag, and nodded slightly to Harry, apparently unfazed by the large amount of money.

"Get me five wands, and books." Harry ordered, wishing that his voice were deeper.

"Any particulars, sir?" The dealer replied.

"Unlicensed and untraceable, of course, and the best for what I've paid you. Don't try to screw me." Harry answered, having already decided that he had no way of requesting specific items without it being extremely obvious that he didn't know what he was talking about.

"If you want them to take, I can give you what you need now. If you give me more time, a week at most, I can perhaps please you further." The black market salesman replied. Harry was pleased; he'd had no way to be certain that the man was selling illegal items until he'd agreed to the unlicensed wands.

Harry considered the salesman's offer for a second, and recognized that he was probably not advanced enough to understand the books the man would hand him.

"Give me the wands now, take the week for the books." Harry responded, his voice steady. He wondered for a second why he wasn't afraid of the store the way he'd once been, but dismissed the thought. It was the same reason why he wasn't scared of running away from the wards with the Dursleys. It had to be done, so he would do it, and that's all there was to the matter.

Mr. Borgin disappeared into the back of his shop to get the wands. He returned quickly and handed Harry what looked like a silk napkin folded in half.

Harry unfolded the silk on the counter top to find five wands of different styles. Apparently his money was enough to pay for specialized ones, rather than the identical ash and willow wands that wizards could practically buy in bulk. Harry picked one up, and felt his body relax once he finally had a strong wand in his hand again.

Harry picked one of the more simple silencing spells he'd learned, and cast it quickly around the room. He worried for a second that the spell would fail, which would be disastrous when it came to the quality of the books Mr. Borgin would sell him, but he felt his magic settle over the room as soon as he'd completed saying the spell. It felt good to finally _cast_the spells he'd worked to perfect. Harry canceled the spell quickly, and took up a different wand. He steadily chose a more difficult silencing spell which each consecutive wand. Harry chose the last wand he'd used. It had responded to him almost as well as the wand he'd bought from Ollivanders, and was certainly more beautiful. It's exterior was a strikingly red wood that was swirled with a thick black grain that caught the light exquisitely. Harry was careful to give no sign of his specific interest in it, and returned it beside the other four. Keeping his particular wand untraceable was, after all, the reason why he was buying it in Knockturn Alley.

"Excellent." Harry replied to the waiting dealer. "What are their properties?"

"Canadian maple, centaur tail-hair. Sapele mahogany, Merrow hair, Black Walnut, black sphinx hair, Heartwood, Hippogriff mane-hair, and this sir, is Brazilian Hardwood with a thestral hair core." The man answered with almost as much pride about the last one as Ollivander himself. The dealer seemed to look at him with more respect now, and Harry wondered if his display of spells had helped the dealings.

"I am pleased with all of them, sir." Harry replied, carefully refolding the silk around his wands.

"I am glad, sir." Mr. Borkins replied.

"I'll return in a week." Harry answered.

Harry left the shop still unsure whether or not the man had cheated him on the wands or not, but he wasn't getting pelted with owls about having used underage magic, so Harry figured he didn't care.

Harry wandered down Knockturn Alley until he found a bookshop. A bell rang as he entered, which seemed somehow muggle to Harry, though he knew better than to ask about it. An elderly woman shopkeeper greeted him from behind a desk, and returned to her work. The bookshop was badly-lit, but otherwise looked like any other Harry had been in.

Harry felt the happiest he'd been since the Ministry attack being in the small bookstore. He was proud to see that the front shelves held many of the books he'd already read, it made him feel like he was part of something, though he had only covered the books a few feet from the doorway. He only had to walk a few paces to find bookcases of volumes he hadn't read yet. He'd already mastered the basics in all of the fields he'd wanted, and chose two more specialized books for each of the subjects he was concentrating on--charms, transfigurations, defense and the Dark Arts.

The books on "Dark Arts" as he'd been taught to call them, were actually just books of offensive spells, or "hexes". Some were gruesome, yes, but they were spells like any other, and followed the same theories and methods as "good" magic. There was nothing particularly "Dark" about them, rather than the fact that they were designed for fighting rather than for running away or hiding. It occurred to Harry that the books were written by experts for people like him, wizards training to be warriors, and felt comforted by the fact that at least some wizards out there were endeavoring to teach him what he needed to know. With that thought in mind, Harry grabbed an extra three of them. He was doubly careful to hide his scar before approaching the counter, but realized he hadn't been looked at once since he'd entered the wizarding world. Apparently the formal robes and hydrogen peroxide had done their job well.

Harry planned to hide out in the muggle world. He figured that even that alone would make him almost impossible to find for the Ministry, and quite possibly for the Order as well. The wizards were used to their own, smaller world. Muggle London was huge, and would be unfamiliar to the wizards looking for him, so it made an excellent place to hide without going too far away from the Hogwarts Express and the wizarding bookstores that he needed.

Before he left for Muggle London, Harry made a last-minute decision to go to the owl-post office. He knew that Dumbledore would be worried about him the second the Order members reported that they'd lost him, and now he decided to care about that. Yet another bad affect of Dumbledore's mindless following of his emotions- the Order had spent far too much of their manpower trailing after and protecting Harry Potter, and Harry knew that if he didn't report that he was safe, Dumbledore would drag all of his Order members through London to search for him. It was frustrating, but at least Harry had a way to avoid it this time, although it felt terrible reckless to walk into a Ministry-run building on Diagon Alley with only his white hair to hide him. The Owlery was bustling with wizards and witches who didn't have their own owls, or wanted their business post-marked, or wanted to send a letter anonymously. Harry slid in beside them along the counter, and paid for a piece of parchment and the one-way flight of a particularly fast-paced Hawk Owl.

Harry thought over what he wanted to say before he wrote anything, knowing that he didn't want the letter to be understood by anyone who managed to intercept it. He decided to just be as vague as possible, and leave it to Dumbledore to extrapolate that he'd run away of his own will.

_Headmaster, I am safe. I will return on time. Sincerely, T.D.L.W.M.H.A.H.E_

Harry hoped that Dumbledore would recognise the initials of the prophesy section that Voldemort had never read, _the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, _and call off whatever reckless rescue mission he'd had the Order members planning.

Harry changed back into muggle clothes before he risked walking through the Leaky Caldron again, in an attempt to stay unrecognisable for all those who knew him as the Boy Who Lived. Still, he could hardly breathe until he was safely back in the muggle world. He knew he had to go shopping, but wanted to get far away from Diagon Alley before he did anything else. He jumped onto a random metro, and changed lines a few times until he knew no one from one metro bus had been in a previous one. He wasn't being followed. He went into a bathroom again to cast a detection spell for anything cast on him to follow him since he'd left Diagon Alley, and found nothing. He was safe.

Harry stepped out at the next metro stop, and went to find a clothing store. He found one almost seconds away from the metro. It was relatively small, and obviously empty, but he only needed a few weeks worth of wardrobe. Harry entered, trying to think of a way to get fitting clothing without wasting time shopping for himself. A man was sitting at the front counter, filling out a sudoku.

"Excuse me, sir?" Harry greeted. The man looked up.

"Psh, I'm no 'sir'. Call me Jamie. How can I help you?" The man responded, looking thrilled.

"Er..yeah. New. er, well, I've gotta get new clothing, but I've got like no time. Do you think you could help me? I just don't have time to shop for myself right now." Harry asked, as truthfully as he could without admitting that he was busy studying magic so he could go and take out an evil wizard like a prophesy told him to. He came out sounding like a child, but Harry wanted that. He was tired of acting like he was holding hostages,which had been a neccesity for his two months around the Dursleys.

"Sure, how much are you looking for?" The man asked, putting away his Sodoku happily.

"Er...a whole wardrobe?" Harry answered. "But I need it fast, so don't worry about it looking good, just as long as it fits." Harry tried to pick a color, so it would at least all match. "Black, make it all black." Harry added, thinking about needing the color to hide out one night. _Before I kill someone._ Harry added, feeling sick at the decisions he was making. _Buying black clothing so I'm not seen before I rip someone's guts out, this is so sick. _Harry thought, thinking over the hexes he had learned. _No wonder Dumbledore tried to shelter me from this by shoving me in with the Dursleys like a muggle child._

"Damn, a runaway, huh? I'm sorry, honey." The man responded softly, while coming around from behind the counter.

"How did you know that?" Harry blurted before thinking. _Shite, well there goes lying about it. Damn it, I've got no idea how to do this._

"Oh no worries, I'm no stalker freak. We just get a lot of runaways here is all. I left when I was 18, right after secondary school. We're all better off with people who loved us for who we are than parents who decide love only extends so far. The man answered. "On the bright side though, shopping for a new wardrobe all at once is really how to go, until you get into the accessories anyway. What size are you?"

"Er..no idea." Harry answered, grateful that he didn't have to pretend to be anyone intense or dangerous around the muggle.

"Eh, I'll guestimate and see what fits you. I've learned not to trust measuring tape; it always lies."

Harry escaped into a changing stall and pulled out his newest Charms book "Protection spells and how to cast them, Volume II: Detection and De-spelling". The first volume had explained everything from anti-muggle enchantments to the ancient Egyptian booby traps Ron had described years before. The second volume, which ahd been checked out when Harry was stealing from the Hogwarts library, promised to explain how to detect each of the covered spells, and explain the intricate process of despelling them safely. Harry hoped to get through all of the spells in a day, but he wouldn't be able to do that while simultaneously picking out clothing for himself.

The muggle salesman passed Harry clothing over the stall door to change into. Harry cast a fast spell to magic the clothing onto him, and waited a bit before stepping out, still reading the introduction to the Charms spell book.

"Hmm, no no no. You don't have the complexion for white clothing. Not a natural blond? Eh, Well, that fits you, so go back in, I'll try again." Jamie said.

Jamie waved him back into the stall. Harry returned. _This man is odd, somehow. _Harry decided, though he didn't think the muggle was any danger to him, so he returned to his thoughts on magic.

The book was already getting confusing, something about 'sensing' different types of magic. Harry thought back over his experience at Hogwarts. He didn't remember ever feeling anything to do with magic, he just said the words he needed and got the spells done. Harry took new clothes from Jamie and magicked them on. He didn't feel anything special about the magicked clothing or anything. The only magic he'd ever had to feel anything for was the Patronus, but this sounded like a very different magical concept. The reason he had to feel happy to spell Expecto Patronum had to do with his emotional energy in relation to the magic, which was very different from walking into a pyramid and feeling the spells there.

He walked out of the stall and Jamie whistled at the clothing he'd found.

Harry accepted new clothing the man handed him and went into the stall to change and wait again.

_Pretending to be a muggle is wasting time_, part of his mind yelled at him, but he silenced it. Any other option was too dangerous. Escaping the Ministry house wards just to get caught for practicing magic in front of a muggle would be horridly ironic. Harry turned slowly to the first chapter, uncomfortable with moving on though he still didn't understand the introduction.

Jamie left him alone after that, and ended up with an assortment of clothing for Harry to chose from. Harry bought it all, preferring to buy too much than spend any more time away from his studying. He barely glanced at the clothing, just knew that it mainly consisted of high quality clothing in dark colors, and that was good enough for him. The man asked him twice again if he was sure he only wanted his clothing in black, but found a wardrobe in it despite his sad-sounded mutterings about straight men and color.

Now that he had books to work from, the pushing _need _to be studying returned in full. Harry wanted to break down and scream at the world, he was so tired of rushing through everything except the books, but he didn't have time for dramatics. He had to study, he had to get better. People would _die _if he didn't, and that was not a price he was willing to pay for the right to cry or take long showers or go on walks when his head hurt from studying. It didn't feel difficult to study--when he was studying as hard as he could, that terrible pushing feeling went away and he could breathe. He was improving, it wouldn't ever be his fault again. As long as he studied. But here, going shopping? He didn't have time for it. Harry thanked Jamie, and gave him a large tip, and asked for directions to the closest hostel.

Harry ran down the street to the hostel. He paid for a private room and locked himself in it, feeling suffocated. It was already past 11:00 AM. Harry knew it couldn't be helped, but he'd lost four hours of studying time during his travels. Harry pulled out all of his books and tried to get them organized by subject and difficulty. His charms book, he decided, might take him the whole month on its own. _That's why I can't waste time wandering around London running away from the Ministry and Dumbledore's army. Damn it! _Harry cursed, casting his strongest long-term silencing spells around the room, followed by his best defense warding. The warding charms would attempt to keep searching spells from finding him, and keep wizards with bad intent from entering.

Harry knew that his spells would barely last a second against the Death Eaters that he'd have to face, but that second's warning could perhaps save his life some day, so he spent the time to cast the wardings. He picked up his Charms book, and set himself up cross-legged on his bed with his other books and studycards spread around him. His heart started to settle down once he had his mind focused on a book again. It occurred to him that his heart had been racing since he'd book his transfiguration book down that morning. Harry relaxed, and desperately threw his mind into learning hexes.

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	4. Chapter 4

Harry settled into his old routine without trouble. He studied with his books at night when the hostel was sleeping. He spent the day surrounded by silencing spells, casting his hexes and defenses in rapid succession, until the hostel room was in ruins and he had to fix it again before he could restart and practice with other spells. Some spells he still had to practice magicless. The Taranis Thunder spell made a sound that, if he put enough power into it to break eardrums as it was ought, would smash through his silencing spells and send muggles running in every direction. He had to learn better silencing spells before he handled that one, but a lot of the advanced silencing spells were mixed with Tranfigurations concepts that he hadn't learned yet.

He could study through his headaches the way he couldn't before. He could skip more of his breaks, as long as he took cold showers to settle his mind when he truly needed it. The only time he had to stop studying other than that was when hunger made him feel too faint to think, and he had to get up to cross the street for food, but he'd bring a book, spelled to look like a muggle novel, and would do his best to study between bites. He was learning new spells faster every day, and he'd been able to clamber through his new books faster than he'd ever predicted.

_I almost get through a book a day. _Harry noted, during his shower two weeks into his routine. _Except for that bloody Anderling book, _He added, unable to forget about it.

He'd had to skip the Charms book, hoping that the others he had picked out would help him decipher it. He had thought that the other books would take him the rest of the summer, but he had closed the last one the night before. He now found himself with two weeks free and no books to learn from but the one he couldn't understand. Harry wanted to scream. He couldn't risk another trip into Diagon Alley, and despite spending all morning rereading the Anderling book, he hadn't gotten any further in it. His best option was to go back to his other books and try to strengthen his control with the spells he'd learned.

_All my spells are improving_, Harry thought, squishing shampoo through his hair. His spells moved faster and hit harder than ever before, even the ones he'd learned years before at Hogwarts. His silencing spells and protection spells had improved most of all, he knew, and it made him feel safer than ever before--Harry stopped, and let soapy water fall into his eyes.

_Feel_, _I _feel _safer under those spells now, I know they are safer because I can feel it. Am I feeling their magic? _

Harry stepped out of the shower and cast a scurgify over himself. It stung like hell but he had to get back to work, he had an idea now how to learn spell detection and he had to follow that. Harry spelled clothing onto himself and ran to his hostel room and picked up the Charms book still sitting open on the floor.

_When you detect a spell, you will get a feeling for the magic. This occurs because your magical energy is reacting with the energy of the placed spell. Magical energies react differently to different types of spells, and with practice you should be able to detect if a casting is a charm, hex, or transfiguration, and even what the casting's magical reaction is spelled to be. _

It hadn't made sense before that his magical energy ould react to anything unless he'd cast a spell on the exact area where the booby-trap was. But he'd remembered something no, hadn't he learned that a wizard's magical energy is always with him? Spells were cast by concentrating magical energy correctly, he knew that. Now he just had to do the same, concentrate his magical energy and let it react with whatever charms were cast around him so he'd know what they were.

Harry sat on the floor, deciding that he wasn't going to get up until he'd mastered the entire Charms book. He _understood, _now all he had to do was learn.

Harry knew he wouldn't be worth anything as a weapon against Voldemort if he couldn't get this. He had to be able to detect spells, or he wouldn't even be able to walk into a room without setting off every trap left for him. He'd die in one of the booby-traps the first Charms volume had taught him, in one of those horrific magical charms that Harry didn't even want to think about beyond memorizing the wand motions and Harry couldn't die yet, not while Voldemort was killing people in his desperate attempt to live.

_Funny that Voldemort would be the one killing to live, and I, the first Seeker to catch a snitch by swallowing it, would be the one living to kill. _Harry thought, before scolding his thoughts back to understanding the charms book. He pushed his concentration into rereading the book, now with his knowledge of magical theory close at hand. He felt his mind settling into 'study mode', where his chattering, depressing thoughts forcibly focused themselves into a single stream of _learning. _He could memorize and practice for days now before his focus shattered, and Harry planned on using the ability to the fullest now.

&&&&&&&&&&&&

Harry finished the last page of Anderling's Charm's book, feeling slightly lost. The book had gone through the detection process too quickly, he hadn't yet fully handled the idea of detecting magic at all, and the book had moved on to detecting individual spells and dispelling them. Harry felt the pushing _need _to grab another book now that he'd finished the one, but knew he'd blown through them. He had to learn with this one. He couldn't wast two weeks without books and without even mastering the Charms book.

That thought in mind, Harry cast his most advanced protection spell on his hostel cot. He felt nothing from it. He dispelled it and recast it to be as powerful as he could make it, throwing his energy through his rosewood wand and hoping he would feel something from the result. Nothing, as always. He'd tried that twice while reading through the book. He couldn't even master the first step in the book's detection lesson.

Harry pulled his braids back with the shoetie he'd been using to tie his hair ever since it had grown to cover his eyes. He'd spelled his hair into braids weeks before, and wasn't quite sure he would be able to get them out anymore, but didn't worry about it. He read the chapter explaining magical detection again, and closed his eyes with the book in his lap. He planned to meditate, and think about it, and cast spells until he had it figured out on his own.

It took him a day to realize he first needed to be able to concentrate on his own magical energy so he would be able to feel any change in it, but he was still back on square one. He couldn't _feel _his own magical energy either. He always just concentrated more to make a spell stronger. Harry started there, and focused on figuring out what he was "pushing" when he pushed a spell to be stronger.

It was three days before it occurred to him that he hadn't eaten or showered or slept for too long. He'd conjured water from the sink pipes when he'd gotten thirsty, and forgotten about himself in the meantime. He'd been _thinking, _and when he really set himself to think about something now, everything else fell away. He'd looked up, and had to ask the landlady how many days had passed. He crossed the street to buy a meal, but the restaurant wouldn't let him in, thinking him homeless. Harry found a street cart selling sandwiches, and bought all that they would sell him. He ran back to the hostel carrying bags of plastic-wrapped sandwiches, and returned to his room floor.

He was getting somewhere, Harry noted, as he ripped open his first sandwich. He could feel something if he concentrated on his body while he cast a spell. Something behind his heart and in his bones would respond, would release, almost like a taut muscle loosening. Magic was in his _body, _he realized, even though he controlled it with his mind and wand. It occurred to him that maybe that was why Voldemort needed to share Quirrell's body--otherwie he couldn't do magic at all. That would be why he needed Ginny's help too, when he was just a memory in a book. He could possess a mind, but he'd never been able to truly do magic until he'd been given a body again, his _own _body again, that held his own magic.

Harry canceled the magical charm that would usually ring at 6:00 and remind him to get his three hours of sleep. His body would fall asleep when it truly needed it, he figured. Beyond that, he would survive, and he didn't want an alarm to startle him out of the deep concentration he needed. Harry ate as many sandwiches as he could, and set the rest aside. He'd eat them if hunger ever distracted him enough to make it worth breaking his focus.

He spent all day sitting on the floor, slowly calling his stray thoughts back to the search for his magic, unti lhe could almost feel it. It felt just out of reach, like a stray memory of someone's name that he could only get the first letter of. It took him a day of sitting with his tailbone aching and his head pounding with concentration to get any further than that, but he managed.

Harry started practicing with water summoned from the hostel bathroom taps. He held the liquid with a simple Wingardium Leviosa, a spell that required constant concentration. It was a setup he'd come up with days before to challenge himself to keep the water in the air at the same time as feeling the magic flow in his body.

He mastered that skill quickly, and it opened a door for his learning. He moved onto harder things to levitate, and after another day of it, he could keep the hostel room's sparse furniture in the air while still feeling his magic. It was then that he realized that magic didn't "flow" at all. It wasn't like liquid that would flow to one place or another. The more he managed to _feel _it within himself, the more he realized how wrong he'd been in thinking about it like something physically inside his bones.

Magic was more like awareness, but it was almost tangible. It was more like a gas in some ways, that was everywhere inside him, but felt almost like stone, with the pure force of it. He tried to think of it as a liquid flowing through him, it was more like an entire river of force and speed that was somehow settled quietly in his body. It wasn't like anything he'd ever felt, or could ever describe, but he managed to feel it. After that he could feel his magic anytime he concentrated on it, even when he wasn't casting anything.

Casting spells was a strange feeling when he was paying attention to his magic. It was like something hooked into his magic and pulled it through his wand. He could feel it as it passed through the rosewood, and focused first into a small beam of energy inside the wood, and then further into a concentrated force inside the thestral hair. It was by being so concentrated that made his magic useful, Harry noted as he split his focus between a deep concentration on his magic and floating a ball of fire in front of him. He was teaching himself to keep a line of thought going along with his split concentration, a skill he would need in order to detect and identify anything he felt his magic reacting to.

Harry carefully kept the ball of fire alive in front of him as he picked up his wand again. He had taken down the booby-trap spell over his cot long ago; now he recast it, wondering if he'd feel anything at all. He felt himself focus the magic in his body, and felt it release as it left the end of his wand. That was normal, he'd been feeling his own spells for days.

He felt the spell settle over the cot. Harry felt his closed eyes widen as he pushed his concentration onto his magic. He could _feel _the booby-trap spell beyond when it left his wand. It wasn't like feeling magic in his body anymore, it was as the Charms book had described, he could feel it reacting with his own magic _outside _his body.

It was then Harry realized something further about magic, something he wished his professors had bothered teaching him years before. Magic was in his body, and strongest there, but it was outside it too. It was like he walked with a net or bubble of magic around him, _that _was the magic that was reacting to the booby-trap. Perhaps it had taken him so long to feel it because he'd been searching in the wrong place the entire time. Magic was everywhere around him, was _inside _him, and in his skin and outside of it.

He'd been accurate so many days before, when he'd described magic as awareness, Harry remembered. It was like that, he could feel and interpret the magic he felt like it was a sixth sense for him. It was like hearing the things around him, but instead of hearing the things that made sound, he felt the things that held magic.

Harry concentrated on his magic and pushed his awareness further, and felt the magic of the booby-trap even more. The booby-trap felt..sparkly. It was the best way Harry could think to describe it in words. It felt beautifully intricate and dangerous, like a thin sheet of ice over a deep lake. All it would take was a single step and a person would break through the magic he'd laid there and fall into the strong danger hidden behind it. Harry could _feel _that truth in the magic itself.

He opened his eyes and saw that his ball of fire had gone out. _Odd that I didn't feel that first._ Harry noted. He closed his eyes again and concentrated. Now he could feel the fire easily, though it was simple enough magic that it didn't feel particularly impressive like the booby-trap, though it felt significantly different. Harry slowly released his concentration on his magic, trying to continue his magical awareness without having to focus so much. He lost it quickly.

Harry walked into the hall and found a clock and a marked schedule at the hostel's desk. He still had five days before September first.

Harry returned to his room and ate the rest of his sandwiches, realizing he hadn't eaten in days again. He didn't feel hungry, but he guessed that he wouldn't even notice himself feeling feint with hunger once he started practicing the new-found skill. He was simply too good at focusing. He'd been training his mind on how to concentrate for months, and now that he had a handle on how to detect magic, he doubted he was going to think of anything else for days.

Once Harry understood what he had to do and how to do it, his new-found skill blossomed. Within days he had covered the detection and dispelling of every booby-trap named in the Charms book, and all the other dark charms he'd learned. He could feel the safe feeling that was mixed into the essence of his protection charms clearly now. He'd always known how the anti-searching-spells that protected him worked, but now he could feel how magic reflected away from them.

Harry cast every one of his study-card spells so that he could feel their essence, and memorized their magical "signature" that told him what they were magically designed to do. He experimented with his own magic, and learned how to make less and more intense versions of the spells he knew by controlling the magic he put into them. He managed to cast his Thunder spell 'lightly' enough that the silencing spells could cover it easily.

Harry felt his understanding of magic soar with ever new spell he examined. He'd heard and memorized dozens of magical principles that told him what magic could and couldn't do, but now it was like he could see those principles at work. He knew why the principles existed, and what they were. Harry couldn't stop wondering why Hogwarts didn't teach this to their students, why they all had him shooting blind for so long.

For the first time, Harry looked forward to returning to Hogwarts. He'd always known how much his class schedule would interfere with his learning, and he hated that thought, but now that he could learn simply by feeling the magic around hi, he wondered how many thousands of spells he would learn by sitting in a Hogwarts classroom. Hermione had told him once that magic was in the castle's stones, and he wondered now if that was true. Harry set his alarm to sleep for 5 hours the night before his return to Hogwarts, knowing he'd want his brain better rested before the next day's journey on the Hogwarts Express.

Harry wrapped himself in protective spells before he even left the hostel. He knew the Order would be looking for him now, but he didn't want them to find him until he was aboard the Hogwarts Express. They wouldn't chastise him publicly, when half of them weren't even supposed to know him, and Harry didn't want his time wasted by an Order member's badly-informed lecture.

Harry cast magical shields around himself that would block hexes, and covered them with spells to avoid being seen, and layered those with spells that would keep magical detection spells from finding his shields easily. He kept those up with a slimmer of concentration. After having held the same protections around the entire hostel room for a month, the spells were second nature to him. Harry cast two Scurgifys over himself before he left, hating the sting and how frizzy it made his long hair, but not wanting to get caught due to two days worth of smelling.

Harry left his invisibility cloak in his leather bag and walked carrying everything together over one shoulder. The invisibility charms that he knew were more reliable than the cloak, which could be brushed aside or have the hood fall down at any moment.

It felt odd, walking casually through King's Cross station. He cast muggle avoidance spells around himself that made the crowd subtly part around him. The entrance to Platform 9 ¾ was spelled with layers of protections against muggles, which surrounded Harry as he passed through the wall. They felt almost slippery, Harry noted, unable to come up with a better word to describe how the walls' magic felt against his own. The spells in the wall itself were easy to identify now, and Harry felt a bit of childish curiosity ease as he detected each individual spell that allowed him to slip through into the magical world.

Platform 9 ¾ was scattered with Order members, Harry spotted as he entered the crowd waiting for the train. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were loudly sending their children off to school, though their eyes looked too wary for it. Charlie was with them, Harry noticed with surprise, and remembered that Charlie was an Order member. Harry prayed the Order hadn't made him come all the way to the Hogwarts Express simply to look for Dumbledore's Boy Who Lived.

Harry studied the man. For the Weasley was a man now, Harry noticed. Even with the ponytail and earing, the Weasley was obviously an adult. It was clear in the way Charlie stood and spoke now, though the formal robes didn't hurt. Professor's robes, Harry realized.

_Charlie is teaching at Hogwarts now?_ Harry wondered quickly, before forcing his mind back to his search for Order members.

Lupin was hiding in a corner with anti-detection spells layered over himself. Harry cast a simple spell to avoid being smelled by the werewolf, and stretched his magical awareness further. He felt the essence of invisibility charms and carefully spelled his way through them enough to catch a glimpse of Moody. The man's magical eye didn't even twitch toward Harry, as Harry knew it wouldn't. He finally understood the magical eye, though Harry wished he could have a few minutes to examine it up close. Harry hoped no one would detect his stretching magic--he hadn't learned a way to hide it.

Harry caught the sense of a strange magic coming from a cheerful-looking man attempting to start a conversation with Snape. Harry focused on the man. The magic felt like the self-disguising charms Harry had studied, but it was more intrinsic than that, more intense, something that was woven into all of the man's magical presence. The _woman's_ magical presence, Harry corrected suddenly, recognizing Tonk's metamorphmagus power.

Harry shook his head at the woman's attempts at cheering up a very irritated-looking professor Snape, and concentrated on the room's magic until he determined that no one else was hiding.

It was then he realized that his hair was still blonde. He didn't want everyone to know how he'd managed to escape the ministry for a month, so he needed to return to school without his disguise. Harry carefully spelled his hair back to black, and followed a forth-year onto the train.

Harry walked invisible through the train until he got to the compartment where he always met with his friends. Hermione was already waiting inside.

Harry hesitated before he opened the compartment door. He wanted to be very careful to hide how much his magical control had improved over the summer. He wanted to be cautious about when he allowed people to know where and how he used magic. Harry looked around to make sure no one was watching, and carefully slid the door open and closed it behind himself. He had already decided to allow his friends to know at least some of his methods.

"Oh!" Hermione startled, staring at Harry. He knew she could only see the compartment doors behind him, which had seemingly just opened on their own.

"Hello, Harry!" She extrapolated happily.

Harry sat down and canceled all of his invisibility spells. He looked out the window to where Moody had been waiting for him. Harry quickly took out a study-card and wrote:

_I am on the train_

Harry opened the window and spelled the card to flutter around the train randomly before landing at Moody's feet from a random direction. Then Harry cancelled all of his anti-detection spells, knowing full-well the Order would find him within minutes now.

"Hello, Hermione." Harry answered.

Hermione's eyes traveled from his neck to his feet slowly before snapping back to his face. The girl started to blush. Harry kept his face blank carefully, knowing that only months before, he would have been bright red with understanding.

"Hi, Harry." She repeated, blinking rapidly. "How are you? You look-"

"Sickly mate, did you not eat at all after you left those wretched muggles?" Ron broke in from the compartment door. Hermione startled, and Harry pretended to snap his gaze over to the doorway in surprise, though he'd heard Ron opening the door.

"I've got sick a few weeks ago, yeah." Harry lied. "Don't worry, yesterday I ate like a dozen sandwiches." Harry added, knowing they'd both try to slow down his training if they knew how hard he was pushing himself. It hurt though, lying to them. Harry started to doubt his plan to not tell them anything. They'd always kept his secrets, he wasn't worried, but he didn't want them to have to deal with the truth, with the prophesy and the murder he was preparing himself for.

_Dumbledore didn't want to tell you the truth for fear of hurting you, see how painful that turned out_. Harry reminded himself.

"That was a lie." Harry declared after he'd thought for a moment. "Let the Order come and berate me and I'll tell you guys everything." Harry offered, and saw his friends nod at him seriously.

"Where have you been this whole time, mate? Mum's been-" Ron started, but stopped short when Harry held up a finger for silence.

Just as Ron went silent, Lupin threw open the compartment door, looking more disheveled than ever.

"Hermione I know we've asked but have you seen…Harry. Harry, you're okay." Lupin finished his sentence staring at Harry as if he'd never seen him before. The man's face relaxed into intense relief, before tightening in obvious anger.

"I assume Dumbledore received my letter?" Harry asked quietly. Lupin took out his wand and Harry felt a strong silencing spell snap over their compartment.

"That you were safe, yes, but…Harry you can't just leave the protective wards and wander into London. You can't afford to act like a child anymore! You had us all worried sick and I find you here with your friends? Were either of you involved in this?" Lupin asked, turning to Ron and Hermione.

"No one knew where I was, Lupin, and no one will. I sent a note to an agent of the Order that I was safe and would return to Hogwarts on time, as I have done. You shouldn't have worried, you should have trusted that I was keeping myself safe." Harry answered, and watched as Lupin became even more annoyed at him. Harry knew what Lupin was thinking, that he was acting like a rebellious teenager, but Harry had to accept that. He wasn't going to allow anyone but his friends know what he'd done over the summer and how advanced his magic had gotten. Harry took out his rosewood wand and cast a weak silencing spell, pretending to have only just realized the need for privacy.

"Harry you are fifteen. Of course we didn't trust your definition of 'safe'." Lupin protested. "Harry, where is your Fawkes wand?" Lupin asked. Harry saw Ron and Hermione's eyes move to his new wand.

"I no longer have it, but I plan on getting it back." Harry lied, and saw Lupin's eyes widen incredulously.

"You lost it?!" The man asked, sounding angrier than Harry had ever heard him.

"I'll get it back." Harry answered, hating how stupidly nonchalant he sounded.

"Harry, that wand is extremely powerful for you! It can save your life against Voldemort."

"I said I'll get it back. You should trust me." Harry repeated, hoping slightly that Lupin would see through his deceptions and realize Harry hadn't been foolish, had been training himself, had been responsible for once..

"Trust you." Lupin repeated dumbly. "I'm disappointed, Harry. I thought you wiser than this." Lupin said, and Harry saw the truth of that in the man's eyes. Harry had to struggle to keep himself from revealing all to his one-time professor, just to never have to see that disappointment again. The werewolf turned slowly and exited the room. Harry felt the man cancel the silencing spell as he left.

Harry cast another, highly more powerful silencing spell over the room.

"Lupin's going to have to apparate from Hogsmeade. You can't apparate from this train." Harry commented, trying to hide how shaky he was feeling.

"You lost your wand? How?!" Hermione broke in, sounding frightened. "I thought that wand was really important."

"It is." Harry answered, pulling out his Fawkes wand and showing it to his two friends. "And Voldemort knows that. I suspect there will be a large group of Death Eaters wasting their time looking for it soon." Harry explained, hiding it back in his robes.

"We can trust Lupin." Ron declared firmly.

"Yes, but Lupin trusts Dumbledore, and Dumbledore trusts too easily." Harry responded. Hermione nodded at him.

"You're right." She said.

"Woah Harry, that's smart." Ron sounded surprised.

"I try." Harry said, thinking over how to explain the last three months to them without taking up the rest of the train ride.

Harry knew his story sounded emotionless as he explained where he went after he'd escaped the Dursleys and what he'd been studying, but he wasn't willing to explain his reasons behind it. "I can't think about anything but Voldemort, I can't breathe if I'm not training" sounded too emotional, too dramatic, and would send them both running for Madam Pomfrey.

Harry tried to stretch his magical awareness further than their compartment but couldn't manage it while simultaneously talking with Ron and Hermione._ I have to be able to concentrate and keep up with conversation_. Harry noted to himself, and turned his thoughts back to Ron and Hermione, knowing their chatter would help him practice.

"Well that Charms book is just…disgraceful!" Hermione was growling. "It didn't explain anything about spell detection?" She cried, obviously exasperated by the idea. "I'm going to send a report in about it to Madam Pince, that book should be taken off the library shelves immediately!"

"Woah Hermione, calm down. He didn't even get it there, remember? Knockturn alley?" Rom interrupted.

"Oh." Hermione looked put out. "But still, you should at least write to the author, Harry." She advised.

"The book was too advanced for me, Hermione. You've struggled with similar." Harry replied, busy trying to push his magical awareness further and pay attention to his friends at the same time.

Silence settled then, as if Ron and Hermione both realized that there were much bigger things for Harry to deal with than incomplete Charms explanations.

"Do you think it's true then, the prophesy?" Ron asked quietly. "I mean, no one's ever doubted that Trelawney's a nutter." He added, sounding hopeful.

"It's true. It sounded exactly like the prophesy I heard Trelawney make second year." Harry said. "And anyway, part of its already come true.' Harry realized as he spoke. Some of the hope in Ron's eyes dimmed.

"How can you know any part of it is true? You can't tell if it's correct unless you fight You-Know-Who and win." Hermione argued rationally.

"Because neither of us can live while the other survives." Harry explained, knowing it was true as he said it. "Voldemort can't rise to power without proving that he can kill me, and power is his only definition of life. And while he's out there killing people I love-" Harry paused and memorized the image of their worried, loving faces. He prayed the truth of his future wouldn't scare them away from him, but he understood that it could. "I can't live until I kill him. I can't dance or laugh or go shopping because that is how I got Sirius killed."

"You didn't-" Hermione tried to interrupt.

"I did." Harry responded with a tone of finality. He'd already accepted that and gotten beyond it, he wasn't going to allow her to lie to herself about it. They both had to be stronger than that. "So now I have to be training myself, so that I can murder Riddle the next time I get within range."

"It's not murder!" Hermioned said shrilly.

"It will be." Harry responded, praying that his two best friends would be able to live with him after it.

"It's not actually, Harry." Ron commented.

"Ron, I don't like it either but-"

"No, hear me out." Ron interrupted him. Harry allowed it. "You're making yourself into a soldier, right?" Ron asked. Harry nodded.

"Well, soldiers don't murder. They kill, they don't murder." Ron answered, his tone dark. "You say anything else and you're calling my Dad a murderer." Ron continued. Harry nodded.

"Alright." Harry agreed. "But I'm in training to kill." Harry didn't mention the fact that he didn't see any difference between murder and killing if it meant someone's blood on his hands and a body before him.

"Bloody hell." Ron cursed, and turned to Hermione. "I guess that means we are too."

"No!" Harry declared loudly. Both of his friends turned to look at him.

_They've never heard me sound so serious._ Harry thought, looking at their startled faces.

"No. You don't see what I'm sacrificing yet but I do. I'm losing everything for this fight, and I'm doing it so you don't have to." Harry tried to explain, knowing he sounded over-dramatic but not caring. As long as they understood.

"We'll be alright man, we'll-" Ron started.

"I'm teaching myself how to kill people, Ron!" Harry interrupted, careful to keep a lid on his temper that would make him want to shout at his friends. "And that's because someday soon I'll be actually killing people. There's no way I'm going to let you go through that." Harry decided firmly.

"There's no way you're gunna stop it." Ron argued back, crossing his arms.

"Harry, what was the D.A but training on how to survive You-Know-Who? You can't protect us from everything." Hermione argued.

"But I can try, and I will." Harry answered.

"Letting us be helpless is not protecting us." Hermione shot back.

"You can't make us not have to live through war, Harry." Ron argued, sounding more mature than Harry remembered him.

"Apparently only I can end this war. No one more has to get involved." Harry responded, but the thought seemed overly hopeful.

"Not true, mate. The whole wizarding world is already involved. My parents, the Order, everyone's choosing sides these days." Ron said.

"Fight to keep everyone alive, Harry, but if you try to keep everyone from fighting Voldemort, we will lose." Hermione answered.

"I can't lead everyone I know into war." Harry answered, knowing he'd lost the argument.

"No one is asking you to. The war is dragging us into it, not you." Hermione said, sounding like she was trying to reassure him. "Don't keep thinking you can somehow save us all." She warned him.

_You have a saving people thing. _Part of Harry's mind echoed cruelly. Harry winced and nodded. It wasn't his job to lead people like Dumbledore, or hide the war like Fudge, he was supposed to be the weapon, the tip of the spear, and nothing else. He was a soldier, not a commander.

"I agree." Harry said slowly. It was reassuring to know that he'd lost the argument, that people smarter than he were going to take over sometimes and simply tell him what to do. Hermione looked relieved too, as if she hadn't just promised away part of her soul to the war too.

"You're still gunna do the D.A though, right?" Ron asked.

Harry wanted to think about it, but the train had stopped, and he to get out. He had a lot of magic to learn.

"I'll think about it." Harry promised as he dispelled the silencing charm.

They got out together. Hagrid had already started his call for the "firs' years" and the rest of the school was piling into the thestral's carriages.

Harry followed his magic straight to the thestrals. Their magic felt _beautiful _to him. Their magic was intricate and exact. It was a force that did exactly what it needed to for them, and nothing else. They were exquisite creatures, Harry realized. They looked emaciated, but it was the same pattern, they had exactly what they needed to live and nothing more. They were built on bone and muscle and tiny pulls of magic. Harry reached out with his magic and examined their magic, it was like thread woven into their bloodstream that allowed the predators to fly on their frail-looking wings, and be invisible to the luckier students at Hogwarts. It was exquisite. Harry blinked, breaking his concentration, and really looked at the creatures for the first time. They were beautiful in their own, horrific way too. They looked like they were carved from that thin glass-like ice that Harry associated with dangerous magic.

Harry bared his teeth at the Thestral in front of him, and growled, then bowed his head, keeping his eyes up to match the thestral's gaze. In forth year he'd thought to bow at them like for a hyppogryff but now Harry thought that was perhaps the worst thing to do with Thestrals. He had to show strength first, and then deference, to win a predator's respect.

The thestral blinked slowly, and Harry approached. He put a hand on the predator's neck and grinned, the first smile he'd shown in three months. He drew his hand through the thestral's sparse mane, feeling almost happy for a moment.

"Oy!, Harry, come on!" Ron called.

Harry looked up and saw that most of the other carriages were already pulling away. Harry patted the thestral's neck and walked back to climb in with Ron.

The carriage was charmed to be lighter, Harry noted, and wondered if Fred and George had used a similar charm when they'd lightened his trunk. Harry sank himself into his magical concentration.

It was harder to keep up his awareness while he was moving. It had been easier in the train that moved so smoothly, but the carriage bumbled and rocked him, and Harry found his concentration faltering. He had to practice more.

The carriages pulled to a stop in front of the main doors, and students crowded beside Harry into the entrance hall.


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione was right about Hogwarts, Harry noted as he sat beside his friends in the Great Hall. The very stones were seeped with magic that he could feel but didn't recognize at all.

Harry ate idly as the welcoming feast progressed. His mind was busy trying to piece out the spells he recognized in the mass of magic that assaulted his senses. He recognized the essences of multiple complex protection spells but they seemed..twisted somehow, more complicated than any magic he'd felt before.

"Harry. Harry!" Someone broke him out of his concentration. Harry turned toward the feminine voice, annoyed. It was Hermione.

"Harry, wake up man." Ron added.

_I should be able to focus and keep up with conversation. _Harry reminded himself.

"Harry, Dumbledore asked to speak to you after the feast, remember?" Hermione said.

Harry looked around the Great Hall. It was mainly empty now, save for a few scattered students. The tables were already cleared. Harry wondered idly when the food had been taken away, and if he'd eaten. He didn't feel hungry, but he rarely did after concentrating on something. Harry was about to return his focus to his magic when he understood what Hermione had said.

"Oh. Thank you." Harry said to Hermione, before lifting himself up from the bench. He grudgingly stopped focusing on his magic. He could still feel it, he could always feel it now, but he knew he'd need all of his concentration with him if he was going to meet with the Headmaster.

Harry knew he had to hide his training from Dumbledore. Dumbledore would try to stop it, or slow him down. Harry knew his routine was brutal, but it allowed him to learn as fast as possible, and the knowledge that he was improving himself was the only thing that kept him standing. If he ever slept more than absolutely necessary, or dawdled eating or showering, his guilt and grief would almost grind him into the dust. Only the thought that he had to keep working kept him from curling up and crying. And besides, he was still alive, so he knew he could live with three hours of sleep a night.

Dumbledore would never understand that. The Headmaster wouldn't accept anything that showed him that Harry's life wasn't fun anymore. So Harry had to hide it from him.

_He'd stop me. He's too old to accept the casualties of war, he'll never accept losing me to what I have to do. There's no choice, I have to hide everything from him. Which mean...he's already lost me." _Harry felt a wave of pity flow through him at the thought, washing away his anger for a moment. _That poor old man.. _His compassion didn't smother his anger for long.

Harry climbed the steps to Dumbledore's office. The gargoyles stayed out of his way for once. Apparently Dumbledore broken his bad pattern and had remembered that Harry didn't know the password.

"Harry, welcome back. Lemon drop?" Dumbledore greeted warmly from behind his desk as Harry entered. Harry shook his head to refuse the treat.

"Thank you, Headmaster." Harry answered, settling himself into a chair. The instruments he's smashed months before were mostly fixed. Dumbledore was watching him, Harry noticed, and saw that the old man's sparkling eyes observing him more carefully than usual. Harry slumped a bit in his chair to look more relaxed.

"I want to ask you how you are, my boy. I know this summer must have been trying." Dumbledore began.

Harry nodded quietly, thinking over his story before he started.

"I'm-" Harry pretended to hesitate. "I'm doing alright. Sirius death..it's getting easier." Harry lied. "Hermione is trying to convince me it wasn't my fault. I dunno, but I'm...I think I might be starting to believe her? Is that...Do you think that's wrong?"

Part of Harry wanted Dumbledore to reach one of his wrinkled hands across the desk, smack him across the face, and remind him that there were more important things than emotions in a time of war. Instead, Dumbledore smiled sadly at him and clasped his hands over the desk.

"No, Harry. I know how much you loved him. It's why you went to the Ministry for him. It was, in fact, a very similar mistake as the one I made with you. You wanted to protect him, there's nothing wrong in that, you did nothing wrong. Love is the strongest force you have against the Dark Lord, and you must protect that most whole-heartedly" Dumbledore told him. Harry hid behind the blank mask he'd been perfecting all summer. It wasn't difficult to hide his emotions behind a stone face now, though it was harder to control the fact that his whole body was aching with anger.

_I love my friends which is why I'm not willing to watch helplessly as they die. Get out of my way, Dumbledore._

"Leaving your Aunt's home was not wise, however, Harry. You were safer there than anywhere, my boy. Why did you leave?" Dumbledore admonished lightly.

_I should have left that bloody house years ago, and you should never have left me there._

"Well, Voldemort's coming after me, right? I didn't want to endanger them." Harry lied with a shrug.

"You mean your relatives? Harry, I assure you, your family is quite safe. Voldemort cannot enter there." Dumbledore reassured.

"The Death Eaters can though, right?" Harry asked, hiding his horror when Dumbledore nodded. "And you just left me there?" Harry asked, staring at the Order's leader.

"The Death Eaters have no way to tie you to Little Whinging. You were quite safe." Dumbledore replied, his voice imbued with "understanding".

"Oh." Harry pretended to give in lamely.

"And now, I must mention the matter of Madam Pince's books. Don't worry, Lupin recovered them from your trunk at the Dursleys and they have all been returned, but I must say, you acted rashly, Harry." Dumbledore admonished, though his tone still sounded too light for it. _He can't even bring himself to scold me. _

"I'm sorry." Harry said, dropping his head contritely. "I didn't think of it as stealing, but I guess it sorta was."

_It was definitely stealing, _Harry thought. Dumbledore just nodded at him slowly from behind his desk. Then the Headmaster's gaze grew penetrating and Harry dropped his eyes, hoping Dumbledore wasn't trying to Legitimize him.

As much as he hated being helpless, Harry still couldn't Occlude. He'd had been trying desperately to learn Occlumency for months, but he still wasn't close to mastering it. Four subsequent authors had told him he could not learn Occlumency through a book, and it truly hadn't worked but he hadn't had many other options over the summer. Harry could only pray Dumbledore wasn't listening in to the betraying thoughts which he still could not hide.

_I should not have come here. I should have skipped this meeting, I knew it would be a waste of time. But if I leave now he's even more likely to Legilimize me. _

"Why did you take the books, Harry? What did you have to learn that you couldn't wait the summer for?"

_He suspects what I'm doing, _Harry recognized, and tried to silence the thought in case Dumbledore was listening in. Harry kept his eyes downcast, but knew that didn't always work, especially not with a strong Legilimens against him.

"I...I was looking for a way to bring Sirius back." Harry lied, dropping his face into his hands.

"What did you find?" Dumbledore asked softly.

"That it can't be done." Harry's voice broke at the end. It was lucky chance; his voice had mainly matured already. It was rare for it to break, but Harry was grateful for whatever help he got to make Dumbledore take him at his word.

"I'm so sorry, Harry my boy," Dumbledore professed in the saddest tone Harry had ever heard from him. Harry looked up cautiously and saw the Headmaster's face looking terribly relieved. It looked as if he believed Harry, perhaps simply because he didn't want to contemplate the other option, that Harry was doing what he had been too weak to do--sacrifice The Boy Who Lived for the greater good in the war.

_Still, you don't become Head of the Order without being able to fake such things, _Harry reminded himself. Dumbledore quickly changed the subject, and asked about how Hedwig was doing. Harry tried to draw out the fact that he'd left his owl with Ron into a full conversation in the hope that Dumbledore wouldn't ask anything more pressing. He ended up looking like a babbling fool, but in a lucky way--the Headmaster dropped all mention of the summer holidays.

Harry left the Headmaster's office still unsure whether Dumbledore believed him or not, but as long as the old man didn't waste any more of his time, Harry figured he didn't have to care.

Harry begged off the party in Gryffindor Tower, saying that he'd only gotten five hours of sleep the night before and lying that he needed to go to bed. He found his trunk beside his bed, and remembered that Dumbledore had mentioned Lupin finding it.

Harry spelled himself invisible and headed for the library. There were anti-stealing wards all over it now, Harry realized, though he didn't feel particularly bad about it. Stealing the books had been necessary, as it was now.

Harry studied the library wards, feeling them out with his magic. Surely Madam Pince made sure that she could leave with books if she wanted to...

_There. _Harry found the key in the magic, the clause that let certain 'marked' people in and out with whatever they wanted. Harry studied the clause in the charmed ward, and cast a spell over himself that would 'mark' him as allowed through. He was sure Madam Pince knew far safer protection spells than the one he'd so easily broken, but she had grossly underestimated him. For once Hary was glad everyone thought him a child.

Harry walked into the defense section and picked up a book on shielding he'd seen various books recommend. He was about to pass through the wards and go to the Room of Requirement when he thought of something. It had been impossible to get potions in Knockturn alley without giving all of his intentions away, and probably a good bit of his ignorance. But here, he had more options. Harry grabbed a potions book and searched through its contents until he found a strong enough concoction for him. Harry knew what he was about to do was immoral, but wars usually were.

"Dobby." Harry called into the dark library. A crack and a squeak heralded Dobby's arrival.

"Master Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby squealed, obviously thrilled.

"Hey Dobby, I've got a favor to ask of you." Harry said to the small elf that had popped in front of him.

"Dobby is happy to Help Harry Potter sir!" Dobby repeated. Harry doubted that he'd ever heard the elf sound so enthusiastic, which was saying something when it came to house-elves.

"Yeah, Dobby, would you get me a load of Mandrake Draught?" Harry asked quietly.

"Mandrake Draught, Sir?" Dobby cocked his head as he spoke, obviously not quite understanding.

"I'm sure there is some in Madam Pomfrey's medicine cabinet. If not, try Snape's potions storage." Harry ordered.

"Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much too sir, and is proud to keep his rules for him. We is not supposed to take from professors' storages, sir." Dobby answered, his ears slowly flopping down in sadness.

"It's not against the rules. I wouldn't make you do that." Harry lied. "Would you help me?"

""Dobby is a free house-elf and he can obey anyone he likes and Dobby will do whatever Harry Potter wants him to do!" Dobby declared happily.

"Good. Leave them in my trunk when you've got them." Harry answered, and saw Dobby's ears lift up slightly in his happiness. Dobby popped from sight, still smiling broadly.

Harry wanted to curl up and cry, or, absurdly, run outside and punch something. Dobby had never even _thought _that Harry Potter might be lying about the rules. It wasn't hard to sacrifice his time and energy to train his mind, or sacrifice his money to buy illegal wands, but the only way for him to defeat the Dark Lord was to sacrifice his soul, and despite all his determination to do it, Harry wasn't sure he'd be able. Harry could barely stand lying to a house-elf for the greater good, he didn't understand how he'd ever manage to look a man in the eyes and kill him.

Burying the thought, Harry returned the potions book to its shelf, passed his book on shields through the library wards, and ran to the Room of Requirement.

_I need to learn to be a weapon. I need to learn to be a weapon. _

The magic there was _fascinating, _Harry noticed as he entered a room set up as a kind of empty gymnasium. He wanted to forget his plans to train and just sit on the floor studying the magic. He would do that if he ever needed to take a break, Harry decided, though he doubted that would ever happen. He was running out of time.

Something broke into his magical awareness, a spell moving _fast _at his back. Harry spun around and spelled the strongest magical shield he knew. He didn't know when he'd thought to get out his wand, but he knew his trained responses had acted correctly when he saw the hex reflect off the shield and crash a dent into the opposite wall.

Harry searched the room with his eyes and magic for whoever had tried to use a Leg-Locker curse against him.

Without warning a spell appeared in front of him heading for his chest. Harry cast another shield before he recognized the hex.

_shite. _His chosen shield was useless against the Perfigo Hamus curse.

Harry tried to dodge out of the way but the hex passed too quickly through his ill-chosen shield and stabbed into his left shoulder. Blood welled up through his shirt almost immediately.

"Ay!" Harry yelled out before he remembered that he was supposed to be silent when in pain. Screaming like that could get him killed. Harry bit his lip to help himself ignore the pain pulsing into his shoulder as he felt a stinging hex headed towards him.

It was then that Harry realized that no one was in the Room of Requirement with him, that no one was attacking him. He had asked the room for a place to train his magic, and it had given it to him.

Harry felt a spell he didn't recognize fly at him and pulled up a strong magical shield as quickly as he could spell it. He got lucky and the curse dissipated against his magic.

There were dozens of magical shields to chose from every time he had to protect himself. The "strongest" ones could protect him from almost any spell, but also took longest to cast. There were some spells designed specifically to pass through the common shields, and he needed to know the specific shields to cast against them. Protego was a very good balance between the strength of the shield and the casting speed, but Harry preferred Contego, which was stronger. He'd become adapt enough at theContego shield's complicated wand-motion necessary that he could cast the charm almost as quickly as the easier shield spells.

Despite his three months of studying and practice, Harry often found himself bleeding from multiple wounds before he had time to heal himself in between casting shielding charms. The Room of Requirement had created the perfect training room for him. It threw spells at him at just over his capacity to shield, so he was pushed to shield against some spells and dodge the rest. The hexes that hit him were always painful, and sometimes sent him sprawling over the hard floor, but never completely incapacitated him. All he had to do was keep up with everything. When hit he had to move fastest rather than slow down from the pain. He had to counterspell his Jelly-Legs or whatever effects a hex had given him, roll out of the way of whatever magic he felt heading towards him and get back on his feet, ready to shield again. He was covered with sweat within an hour, but the spells didn't stop, so neither could he. It was perfect.

The fastest shields, Harry learned that night, were mostly only effective against the weakest spells the room sent at hi. Unfortunately the weaker spells were often also the most fast-moving, and didn't leave him the time to cast a Contego. Harry took two more wounds before he understood how to use the quickly-cast shields. If startled by a fast-moving hex, Harry learned to cast a fast shield that would slow the hex down enough for him to dive out of the way of whatever magic got through his shield.

Harry had just gotten up from such a move when he saw one of his nightmares. Ron was standing in his pajamas and bathrobe just inside the room's door, with a hex flying towards his face.

Harry threw a Protego shield in front of his friend and didn't breathe until it blocked the hex.

"Ron, what the fuck are you doing here?" Harry asked angrily before he managed to clamp down on his temper.

"You weren't in the dorm." Ron answered haltingly.

"And?" Harry asked, glad to hear his voice sounded stale. His anger was well hidden again.

"Well, I was worried so-" Ron trailed off.

Harry felt pain burst across his back.

"Damn it!" Harry cursed, magicking a strong shield around himself and Ron. Harry pushed most of his brain power into keeping the shield up, and hoped Ron was smart enough not to distract him.

"Harry, you're bleeding like hell. Come on, Madam Pomfrey should be-"

"No thanks." Harry cut Ron off curtly. _Already trying to slow me down. _

"Harry, this isn't good, mate. You-" Ron started, sounding sincere.

"No, thanks." Harry repeated darkly. _I have to get back to work_

"No, hear me out." Ron argued, sounding angry.

"Then you'll go?" Harry asked, feeling his head start to hurt from trying to keep up the large shield after so much exercise.

"Yeah. Sure, Harry." Ron agreed, sounding angry.

"Alright, so speak your piece." Harry ordered.

"Look, Hermione and I didn't say anything on the train 'cause you were talking about Sirius and we both thought training might be helping you get over it, right? So I thought, let you grieve in your own way and you'd be okay, but Hermione and I were just talking and..." Ron faltered for a moment. Harry hoped he'd turn around and leave him alone to practice, but Ron kept on.

"Harry, you look like you were trapped in a Gringott's vault for a month! You're half-starved, you smell like a beast, you obviously haven't changed clothing or washed yourself in weeks. Every time I blink it's like you've lost track of everything. You're staring into space, you have no idea what people are talking about, you're eyes are glazed over like you've been drinking Euphoria Elixir all day. We ask what the hell happened this summer and you tell us you've been in training for murder? And here you are, looking half-dead after pulling an allnighter in the Room of Requirement with dangerous spells flying at your head. What the fuck?"

Ron stared at Harry, obviously waiting for something. Harry couldn't figure out what Ron wanted--he was too busy keeping the magical shield up against the room's bombardment.

"So now you'll go?" Harry asked finally.

Ron looked hurt. Harry reminded himself to figure out what he'd said wrong during one of his breaks. For now, he had to keep the shield up behind both of them.

"Yeah." Ron said, looking terribly disappointed. "But breakfast is in an hour and you really need to shower and get to Madam Pomfrey, trust me."

"It's almost breakfast already?" Harry asked.

_Oh, I forgot to sleep. Maybe I don't need potions to do this after all.  
_

Ron shot him a worried, pointed look.

Harry cast healing spells over himself until his pain dulled to a deep ache, and ran past Ron into Gryffindor Tower. As much as Harry hated wasting time showering, he knew his professors would drag him to Madam Pomfrey if he walked into their classroom dripping with blood.

_All except Snape, _Harry corrected.

Harry was out of the shower before Ron even made it there, despite taking the longest shower he'd had in months. He was lucky--no one else was in the bathroom. He didn't want anyone to see his ribs poking out where they hadn't before.

Harry knew he looked terrible, but he also knew that it didn't matter. All Ron could see was that his cheek bones were sticking out more than usual, and he wasn't sleeping the nine hours doctors recommend for his 'developing teenage mind'. Harry knew better, he was getting stronger every day.

Dried blood came out of his nose in the shower, though a hex had never affected his face. Harry didn't remember having a nosebleed, but figured in all honesty he wouldn't have noticed if he had.

Harry snarfed his way through breakfast, though he was careful to let Ron see him eating. He spent the half hour he still had before class sneaking his stolen book back into the library.

He studied there until his alarm spell rang, reminding him that he had to get to class. Harry checked the schedule McGonagall had given him, grabbed the book he was still reading, and walked to Transfigurations.

Harry had a plan to never give any teachers a reason to notice him. Harry picked a seat near the back and sat down, a few minutes early to class. He set his book down on top of his desk and continued the chapter he was on about spell invention.

Eventually McGonagall walked in and discussed how to transfigure seeds directly into plants of different species. Harry had mastered the methodology months before. He spelled his library book to look like the Transfigurations text and continued on with his own studying.

He didn't even have to fake paying attention in Professor Binn's class, and Flitwick didn't care whether he took notes or not as long as he learned whatever they were practicing. Harry pretended to fail at the simple Impedimenta charm a few times and performed it a few moments after Ron. Other than for having to split his attention between his book and his surroundings, Harry hardly lost a minute of studying.

Harry decided to skip Potions class entirely. It would take up all of his time to brew the assigned potion, so he decided not to do it at all. Dumbledore wouldn't expel him for anything, Harry could blow up the entire Potions classroom if he wanted and probably only end up with a lecture that Dumbledoe wouldn't even make scathing. He'd probably skip the lecture too. Either way, he didn't have to worry about the detentions Snape would probably assign for missing class, because he would get away with skipping those too.

Harry hated using his connection with Dumbledore, but he'd hated using Dobby's trust too. He knew he had to use all of the tools at his disposal. Potions was not a subject a fighting wizard needed to know. It was behind-the-scenes, slow work, and the Order already had people doing it. It wasn't Harry's responsibility, regardless of what the Hogwarts curriculum assignments had to say.

He spent the rest of the day in the Room of Requirement studying with his books and practicing his shielding. He skipped Defense Against the Dark Arts too. He wondered idly who Dumbledore had found to teach the class, but quickly dismissed the thought. No matter who the teacher was, Harry'd already memorized the 6th years' textbook _Confronting the Faceless_ by Natasha Beninjale and the author's second, better book _Fighting in Flight_. Harry didn't need a 6th-year class on counterjinxes and didn't have the time to fake it. He had a spell to find.

The Room of Requirement was the perfect place to scan through the dozens of books he could smuggle from the library at a time. He asked for a place to study and fight and the room gave him a comfortable couch, tea, meals every two hours, and the perfect place to hide from harrassing friends. He interspersed his learning with his shielding practice, and _felt _himself improving faster than ever. He wished he never had to leave until that day when he'd go out to kill.

His days at Hogwarts started to move more quickly once he'd set up a routine. He studied and practiced shielding in between Charms, Transfigurations, and the History of Magic, the only three classes he was still going to. As much as his mind screamed at him to stop wasting time, Harry knew he wouldn't get away with skipping another class, so he continued Transfiguring his books and pretending to be incompetant in class.

The Room of Requirement soon answered his 'need to be a weapon' by providing him with targets. Sacks of sand would appear from nowhere and shoot spells at him. Then he could do more than practice his shields-- he could fight back. It was haunting, that Wednesday, the first time he practiced with them, to see the sacks laying all around him after, leaking sand from the holes and slashes he'd cut. Harry allowed himself a full minute just to stare at them.

.

Harry sighed in relief at the end of his Friday Transfigurations class. He'd been studying during his classes that day, but he wanted to return to the Room of Requirement. He knew it was going to move him onto something more difficult that day. He hadn't been hit once on his last practice session the night before--he'd cursed all of the targets before they'd gotten off a spell. Now he wanted to return to see what the next part of his studying would entail.

"Mr. Potter, stay for a moment please." Professor McGonagall called as he got up to leave. Harry suppressed a frustrated sigh and approached his professor. McGonagall was standing beside her desk. He stopped in front of her.

"Yes?" Harry prompted as politely as he could.

"As you know, your N.E.W.T.s are at the end of next year. I'd like to talk to you about that." She explained.

"Oh, I'm already studying." Harry replied, thinking over how much he still had to learn.

"So I've noticed." McGonagall didn't looked pleased at the thought. "Mr. Potter I would be the first to say that you can not do well on your N.E.W.T.s without serious application, practice and study. However, I have not seen you in the Great Hall at all this week. You stole books from Madam Pince. You look beyond exhausted. Ms. Granger has come to speak to me twice. I cannot ignore this. I am glad to see you applying yourself, however this new-found passion you have for studying is unhealthy, to say the least."

"I've been getting meals from the house-elves." Harry said, unable to think of a better response, though it sounded like a child's whine. Professor McGonagall pursed her lips unhappily.

"You have two years before your exams, Mr. Potter." McGonagall reminded him.

_But so much less before I'm tested. _Harry thought, though he knew better than to say it.

"But I've slacked for so long, Professor. I'm trying to make up for that now, and I'm so behind." Harry said, doing his best to sound like he was legitimately worried about a Ministry test.

"Pace yourself, and you will find you will be able to stick to your studying for longer." McGonagall advised.

_Like I'd quit, knowing I'd get people killed. _

"Plan time to relax and be with your friends." She said.

_I don't have the _time, _Merlin will no one accept that? I don't even know Occlumency yet, how many more people do I have to get killed before people will leave me alone to work?_

"There are a great number of people who care for you here, Harry Potter. Take care of yourself, for them if nothing else." McGonagall told him, sounding like she wanted to be quoted on a chocolate frog card one day.

"Thank you, professor." Harry answered. He felt like he'd grown up a little, and had somehow never noticed it, when he saw that he hadn't muttered or blushed or stumbled over his answer to her 'care' like he would have only months before. It felt like years since he'd been so childishly awkward.

McGonagall acknowledged him with a nod, and Harry left.

He went straight for the library, his thoughts on learning Occlumency returning. He had read four Hogwarts books on the subject over the summer, and none of them had taught him the skill.

Harry was grateful that McGonagall had unintentionally reminded him of his lack of Occlumency. He knew it was time to focus on it now.

He'd started trying to learn Occlumency over the summer. He'd brought four books home on the subject and had started practicing at the Dursleys. Every night, even while his head pounded and his body moaned for sleep, he stayed up to try and clear his mind. He now with the ability to meditate, to think of nothing but a single image until his thoughts settled, but that wasn't good enough, muggles could do that. What was different about Occlumency, how was he supposed to protect his thoughts while still thinking? He'd read four books, and they'd all repeated the same useless chatter at him about thinking on two levels.

He was supposed to keep his mind blank like a mask on one level, and let his thoughts hide underneath, like fish swimming in the water beneath a frozen pond. Then he was supposed to project the image of thoughts _above _that mask, to show fake thoughts and emotions while hiding his own. And even beyond that he was supposed to learn how to mix his thoughts with magic and make it almost impossible for anyone to stay within his mind. And yet no matter how many explanations he read of how to do that, he was no closer than the day Snape had thrown that jar of cockroaches at him and bellowed him out of his office.

He couldn't go into battle without learning to close his mind. The one thing his Occlumency books had taught him was that without it he'd be left almost unable to fight-his enemies would be able to predict his every spell.

As important as it was, he'd been unable to learn Occlumency with the books he'd brought to the Dursleys, and so he'd given up. Now, however, he had a whole magical library to steal from.

Harry scoured the library stacks for books on Occlumency that he hadn't found to steal before. There were two. He flipped through them and discovered what he'd been expecting--they were exactly like the others he'd read; insufficient. He needed to know _how _it was done, _how_ to truly close his mind like Snape had always ordered him to do, and the library couldn't help him. It had only taken about a half an hour to figure out.

"Shite." Harry cast a quick spell to shelve the useless books and dropped into a seat.

_Wasted time, I have to get back to work._ His mind nagged at him, like always, but for once Harry ignored it.

He had to accept it, and many of the author's introductions had warned him of this--Occlumency couldn't be learned from a book. Which meant he needed help.

Harry's first thought was to go to Dumbledore. It hurt to toss that thought away. He had to avoid Dumbledore until he could successfully mask his thoughts and hide his training from the old man.

Harry's next thought was to find an Order member to teach him. Surely if it was impossible to fight without Occlumency, they had at very least mastered the first step and could create that blank mask over their thoughts in order to fight. He knew many of them would be willing to teach him, but then it occurred to Harry that they were all connected to Dumbledore. The foolish Headmaster was their war leader, anything they found out, especially if it had to do with the headmaster's prophesy child, they would tell to Dumbledore.

Which left him with no options. He wouldn't be able to find anyone that wouldn't report his every thought to Dumbledore. Anyone he found outside the Order would just as likely kill him as help him, and he couldn't take the chance.

_Damn it, but I have to learn to close my mind. I will _not _be a liability. _

Harry had an idea. Snape. If he could get Snape to teach him Occlumency again, he had a good chance that Snape wouldn't report him to Dumbledore. Snape was an Order member, but he thought Harry was an idiot, thought of him as a fool Dumbledore was putting too much faith in, someone it was not worth reporting about.

It was a gamble, which Harry hated, but it was necessary.

Harry made his way down to the dungeon classroom. The door was open, which he was grateful for. He knew Snape would not be amenable to listening to him halfway through one of his class sessions. Harry walked in and saw the potions master bent over his desk, his greasy hair falling limply beside his face. Harry knew his hair wasn't much better off-- He could quite definitely not get the braids out of his hair now. _Nor do I care. _Harry reminded himself, and approached Snape's desk confidently.

"Professor Snape, sir, I'd like a moment of your time, if I may." Harry started, doing his best not to ire the man.

Snape always tried to unsettle his students by making them wait as he worked at his desk. Harry knew that, but now he had better things to do than wait for his professor to realize he simply wasn't intimidated by teachers anymore. He was about to protest when Snape finally answered him.

"Mr. Potter." Snape began, still writing as he spoke. "Whoever gave you the notion that I would be amenable to that was highly mistaken. Kindly recall whatever stray spark of wisdom kept you from entering my class this week, and return to your quidditch field." The professor replied, not looking up.

"No thank you, sir." Harry answered shortly. "I need our help. I need to learn Occlumency, sir." Harry stated. Snape looked up slowly from his work. His face looked bored, his eyes expressionless, and Harry suddenly knew that no matter how hard he tried to hide his emotions, he'd never be as adept at faking them as Snape.

"And what in my demeanor gave you the impression that I would do that, Mr. Potter?"

Harry took out his rosewood wand and cast the best silencing spell a 6th year would be expected to know. It was nothing in comparison to what he could do, but he didn't want to reveal his true progress if he wasn't forced to. Still, he'd made a decision about Snape, and if he was going to reveal one of his secrets, he knew better than to do it where Malfoy could listen in.

"Your loyalty." Harry responded. Snape raised his eyebrows a touch at him. A silent 'oh?'.

_He's listening now. _Harry noticed, and wondered if it was his magic or his response that earned the professor's attention.

"You're a smart man, and you had the perfect chance to kill me last year. All you had to do was pretend not to understand my call that 'He's got padfoot', and look the other way as I ran after him. You knew I thought of myself as a hero, you knew I would go to the Ministry that night, and Voldemort would have given you whatever reward you asked for. Instead you risked your standing with your Dark Lord to inform the Order. You actually are loyal to Dumbledore." Harry concluded. It was true, he did consider those reasons good evidence that Snape was a true Order member, but he wasn't so stupid as to ever be _sure. _

"Mr. Potter." The name slid off of Snape's tongue. "As touching as your declaration of faith may be, I can't fathom why you thought I'd care. Now dismiss yourself, I have better things to do than listen to your glorious conclusions." Snape said as he re-inked his quill and returned to his work.

"No, I don't believe you do." Harry replied.

"Oh yes, our great celebrity." Snape sneered, a disgusted look plastered across his face for all to see.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

Harry knew he was gambling now. He didn't _think _there was anything truly dangerous about the prophesy anymore. If he was wrong and Snape was a Death Eater, Harry had no doubt that the prophesy would get to the Dark Lord now, but he was mostly sure that wouldn't matter. Voldemort was already trying to kill him, and already knew that Avada Kadavra wouldn't work. The prophesy's danger had passed, but hopefully, it would be enough of a secret to get Snape to want to teach him how to hide it.

Snape was staring at him. His bored expression had only grown more unimpressed, but Harry knew better than to trust the man's facial expressions. The man was _good _at what he did. Harry hadn't even noticed Snape moving his hand into a pile of papers on his desk until he'd felt a strong privacy wards fall over the room halfway through his recitation of the prophesy. Suddenly he wondered how many wands the man had stored in benign places throughout the room.

"You foolish boy! Do you have no concept of discretion? Or did you honestly think Silentium Totalus was proper protection against the Dark Lord?" Snape hissed.

"It was my point, actually. I am a liability, sir. I'm asking you to change that." Harry replied.

"Dramatic, Potter, but you have no secrets Dumbledore is not willing for the Dark Lord to take from you. There is no reason for me to work simply to cost him the hour of torturing information out of you." Snape replied coldly.

"I got Sirius killed, sir. I hate that. I do not want to make that mistake again." Harry heard a plee enter his voice, a legitimate emotion. He _needed _to learn this.

"And I hate having my time wasted, Mr. Potter. Kindly dismiss yourself from my officeand train yourself to be a hero on your own time. I do not have time for your 'feelings'" The professor sneered over the word.

Harry left, feeling incompetent. He'd wasted time, given up information, and won nothing. His thoughts were as unprotected as ever.

With that thought, Harry realized that he didn't have to learn Occlumency at all. He had to learn how to protect his mind from someone trying to access it, but there were likely more than one way to do that. He knew dozens of spells on how to protect his body, he only needed to know one for his mind. Snape had never been the last resort, he'd felt desperate and had let his emotions run away with his mind again. He'd been a fool.

Harry practically ran back to the library shelves. He had a spell to find.

Harry smuggled twenty books back into his dorm that night. He made sure McGonagall saw him go up to his tower at 10:00, the normal bedtime, and spent the next hour sitting on his bed, storming through the books he'd found. They all mentioned Occlumency as a necessity in wizard dueling, but didn't give a hint as to a different way to protect one's thoughts.

Harry snuck back down into the library to spend another sleepless night. He left with a pile of books before Madam Pince returned in the morning, and read through them in class. Nothing. He decided to skip Defense and Potions again, but still went for his three hours of sleep that night without any more luck. He slept from 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM, which meant McGonagall would see him go to bed, and no one would be awake to see him leave it.

Even so, the next day in the History of Magic, Hermione passed him a note.

_Harry, I'm starting to worry about you. It's only the first week back but still, I haven't seen you around at all, not even in the Great Hall. Are you okay?_

Harry read the note quickly, and wrote below it quickly:

_I'm fine. Dobby brings me food. Don't worry about me, just think of it as you during finals week. _

Harry returned to his book, and had just found his place when another scrawled note was thrown on top of the text.

_You shouldn't make Dobby do that. Maybe go down to the kitchen and pack yourself lunches? _

Harry brushed the note back to Hermione and returned to his book. It was explaining how thoughts control magic, so the better control one has over one's mind, the stronger one's magic. There are no weak wizards, only untrained minds, was its general point, but Harry already knew that. He wanted to know how to _block _thoughts, not train them. He was already doing that. He kept reading.

Harry skipped all of his Potions and Defense classes that week, and then the next. He returned to using Scurgify to clean himself, though he was careful to use it multiple times a day so he didn't start smelling again. Even multiple times a day it was faster than showering, so Harry got used to the sting of it.

He wondered, sometimes, why no one really stopped him. Hermione tried a few more times, with notes and pleas and warnings. Ron invited him to play chess, or exploding snaps, 'or anything, mate', every night in an obvious attempt to get him to relax. McGonagall watched him like a hawk. His Quidditch team asked him about Quidditch every time they saw him in the halls. All that annoyance, yes. But Dumbledore never spoke to him. He'd gone more than two weeks at Hogwarts without anyone asking him again where'd he'd been that summer, or why he'd left. He was never given detentions for his missed classes. He missed every meal, every Quidditch tryout, every social event, and no one but students mentioned it. Harry was glad, but it worried him, like there was a puppet master behind everything, allowing him to pass through Hogwarts without ever touching it. Either way, Harry was grateful. He had too much to learn to be distracted by Quidditch games and dormitory parties.

He was as vulnerable as a first-year as long as his mind was open to Legilimency. Harry reminded himself of that every time his body screamed in pain to be allowed to rest, to go outside, sleep. He stopped taking breaks entirely, and searched his books despite the throbbing headaches. By the end of the second weekend he'd worked himself down to two hours of sleep a night._ I can do this. I have to do this. I can't waste time. _Harry thought as he set his alarm to wake up in two hours that Sunday night. He wanted to get back to the Room of Requirement as soon as possible.

Harry woke up with his nose bleeding all over his nightshirt. He healed himself quickly, though doing magic made his head hurt even worse. Harry struggled to keep from throwing up as the pain pulsed in time with his heartbeat. His body ached.

It was no worse than usual. Harry hated knowing that he was able to survive on two hours of sleep and had gone so long with three.

_No wonder I'm still so damned vulnerable, I'm always wasting time._

"Harry?" Ron mumbled from his own bed, interrupting Harry's thoughts. "Where you going?"

"Bathroom." Harry whispered, and made himself invisible to sneak out of the dorm. Harry knew from experience that Ron would be asleep before he'd expect him to return.

Harry went to the library first, but ended up just returning the books he'd stolen out of it. He'd searched for over forty hours now, he'd been through every shelf of books that even mentioned the mind, including Potions books. He now knew how Rememberalls, Pensives, and the Sorting Hat worked, and nothing about any mind-protection spell other than Occlumency. The library couldn't help him. He wanted to break down. His head felt like an axe had been shoved through the top of his brain and his blood was stinging him as it poured between his ears and behind his eyes. And despite how hard he was pushing himself, he was still useless in the fight against Voldemort, he still didn't even know how to protect himself. Not for the first time Harry wondered if pure determination wasn't good enough, if he'd fail despite his work.

Harry ran to the Room of Requirement, an idea forming in his mind. It knew how to teach him to duel, it had been advancing him as he needed, now he just needed it to do the same, with a different lesson.

He walked back and forth in the hall, keeping an eye out for Ms. Norris as he thought _I need a way to close my mind, I need a way to close my mind._ It was his last chance, Harry thought, and almost wanted to laugh with relief when a door appeared in the hallway wall.

He opened the door and stood in the doorway, his emotions melting, unsure whether to laugh or cry. The walls were covered with Conservative and Unionist Party political propoganda. The room, painted a suburban off-white, was full of televisions sets playing cartoons and what looked like soap operas.

_Close my mind? What wierd magic._ Harry suddenly had a inkling that Dumbledore had created the room.

Then it sunk in that he'd failed, and Harry couldn't find anything a bit amusing anymore. Harry closed the door and tried again. He didn't know how else to respond. He couldn't give up, he had no other options.

_I need to learn to protect my thoughts. I need to learn to protect my thoughts. _

Harry looked over, and saw the expanse of wall in front of him. The door hadn't appeared at all.

_Damn it! _

Harry spent a half an hour outside in the hall before he concluded that he'd run out of options again.

He went back to trying with the Room of Requirement anyway. He knew it was useless, but he kept trying, getting more and more abstract in his needs.

_I need a way to hide what I'm thinking. _

A masquerade costume store.

_I need a way to block my thoughts_

Nothing.

_I need a way to protect myself_

His gymnasium. Harry looked around and saw the same training room he'd been practicing in before. Harry walked in slowly and blocked a few spells as they aimed at him. He'd already mastered how to 'protect himself'.

Harry left and walked back and forth in the hallway once more. The Room of Requirement had been training him to be a weapon all week, and was giving him new things to practice every other day. Perhaps with time it would teach him Occlumency too. But first he'd have to learn everything else the Room thought more important in his training than controlling his mind. Harry hated the thought, though he knew the shielding practice was just as vital as learning Occlumency. Still, he didn't have the time. He had to master Occlumency now, which meant he had to master everything the Room would teach him, now. Harry was glad he was living on two hours of sleep now, even though he looked like an abuse victim from the dark bags under his eyes. He may look like a zombie, but inside he was getting stronger, and if he put in the effort, the Room of Requirement would teach him the rest of what he needed to know.

Harry entered his usual gymnasium, wishing again that he never had to stop his training to go to class.

The next week a large bottle of an acrid-smelling potion appeared in his clothes trunk.

This time after he went up to his dorm to say goodnight to McGonagall, he went straight to the bathroom and conjured a teaspoon. He measured carefully, following the directions he'd found in the Dark Arts potions textbook he'd found the potion's name in. The potion was originally designed as a torture device--as a way to keep prisoners awake. Harry figured the wizards that developed it didn't want to waste time in letting their prisoners sleep, and somewhere along the line it was used to wake up the Petrified. It wasn't really important what it was developed for-it would allow him to learn faster and be more aware, without the need to sleep. He could be in the Room of Requirement twenty two hours a day now, and that was all that mattered.

.

.


	6. Chapter 6

He started feeling the affects of the potion in his second week with it. At first he just didn't have to sleep anymore, but the affects started to build. His mind was sharper, faster, more awake than ever. He felt like suddenly he could _focus, _suddenly he could _think, _and his studying got faster. He was going to buy Dobby a wardrobe--the potion was _perfect _for him. Its side effects all seemed minor. He was cold all the time, but he always was, he didn't care if that got worse. He spelled warm sweaters for himself and soon forgot about the cold entirely.

By the end of the second week, nothing was painful anymore. His thoughts didn't stray, didn't poke at him about guilt or stupidity or Sirius's death, because he had a book in front of him, or a spell to practice, and that was all there was. Training was the only thing he wanted or needed to do, so as long as he was studying, he didn't want for anything.

His skin was turning a little yellow, he noticed one day that week, but it wasn't like that was a reason to panic. Being pretty wasn't his concern anymore, as made obvious by his now dread-locked hair. His hair had started falling in his face so he'd spelled it into braids. He'd never taken them out, and now wasn't sure if he could, but it didn't matter.

He was getting better so quickly now, and he hated how much time he'd wasted dawdling without the potion. Harry started to _feel _how incantation words shaped his concentration on his magic, and so shaped the spell he was doing. He'd never had enough focus to feel that before, but it was excellent. All he had to do to make a spell was concentrate on how he wanted the magic to shape itself, and if he had the focus, he wouldn't need words at all. It was difficult, he couldn't do anything more complicated than first-year spells, but was doing it.

Harry was practicing with that when he got interrupted from his training for the first time in a month.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice called into the Room of Requirement. Harry was trying to make a 'nox' spell work, since he'd been able to light his wand silently.

"Harry, I need to talk to you." Hermione said.

"Hermione, I need to work. I thought you'd understand that more than anyone."

Harry looked up and saw a determined look in her eyes. He knew better than to argue more, that would only waste more time. He dropped his wand arm, suppressing a frustrated shrug.

"Now Harry, I know you want to push yourself to improve your magic this year, but Harry you call me extreme, and look what you are doing." Hermione began in an understanding tone. Harry stared at the floor, trying to keep himself paying attention to her. His mind wanted to wander back to the wand in his hand and the spell he needed to learn.

"Harry, you love me, right?" Hermione suddenly sounded about to cry. Harry looked up, startled, and wondered what was going on. He wasn't good with guessing people's emotions, and that was only worse with girls.

"Yeah..." Harry answered, hoping she'd explain whatever she needed to quickly. He hated to see her upset, but it was his job to keep her alive, and that was even more important than cheering her up, he thought. Harry wasn't sure what to do, he didn't want to tell her to go away and hurt her so badly, but he had to study so he could protect her...

"Just remember that with what I'm about to tell you, okay?" Hermione continued, her nose sniffling but her voice sounding clear again. Harry nodded slowly, still confused.

"Harry, if you don't promise to slow down with this training thing, I'm going to tell Dumbledore what's going on." Hermione said firmly.

Harry looked up, his mouth agape at her.

In the train, he'd told her everything, she knew everything. He had thought he should keep telling his friends everything, that there was something important about that, even though he didn't know what it was anymore. It was illogical, but it had felt urgent.

_Damn it, I listen to logic, not emotions. _

It had backfired. Harry could hardly process it. She was betraying him. to Dumbledore. Hermione was going to betray him to Dumbledore.

"Hermione, if you do that, I'll never trust you again." Harry replied, hating how cold his voice sounded. Why couldn't he show emotion, was that what she wanted? Harry tried to break his blank expression, but could only fake a frown. It was like his face wasn't connected to his emotions at all anymore.

"Harry don't take it like that! I'm not betraying you, really, I'd never do that. But look, Ron says he can count every single one of your vertebrae when you take off your shirt. I watched your hair turn into filthy dreadlocks. I can see where the bones cross in your arms. Your eyes are bloodshot, you look exhausted, I only see you in class, otherwise you're running into here. You're emaciated, you're sick, you can't do this."

"Yeah, I look like shit. How does that justify you betraying me exactly?" Harry interrupted her, glad for once that his voice did reflect his actual emotion: anger.

"You're killing yourself Harry! What do you expect I do, sit back and watch, because you tell me that's what you prefer?"

"Yes! That's exactly what you need to do. Remember that whole thing on the train, you promising to think like a soldier too now, if I had to, you would too? Fine then, think like a soldier. What is one man's life worth if his death can take out the Dark Lord?" Harry shot back.

"You say the Dark Lord now." Hermione noted quietly.

"To remind myself what I'm dealing with, what's your point?" Harry threw his words at her.

"Killing yourself now isn't going to help with Voldemort at all!" She argued.

"I'm not killing myself now, Hermione. I'm studying so I won't get killed. I need you to let me do that!"

"You can't do this on your own Harry!" Hermione warned shrilly. "I know you want to but you can't, you're going to get sick and die before you've ever seen your 'Dark Lord'. You'll already sick, the whole school had been gossiping for weeks about what disease you've got. And the truth is you're here in this room every night instead of taking care of yourself. You're running yourself into the ground."

_You have a saving people thing. _Harry's mind repeated at him.

"Yes, I'm tired and I've lost weight, Hermione. But guess what, that might be the only way everyone I love will live through this next year! Yeah, guess what, I don't think Voldemort is going to be laying low for much longer, which means he's going to be out to kill me again. How many people do you think he'll plow through before he gets to me this time? Thirty? Fourty?" Harry asked rhetorically. "So I've gotta go to him, forgive me if I don't dawdle through my training." Harry finished, glaring back at the wand in his hand and feeling for his magic, though he was unable to concentrate enough to think of a spell to practice with. He was furious but it felt good, it had been so long since he'd felt anything in response to what people said to him.

"I know you have to train Harry, it's how you're doing it that frightens me." Hermione answered, sounding calm again.

"Which mean's you're going to tell everything I trusted you with to Dumbledore." Harry repeated, unable to believe it.

"If you don't slow down, yes."

"Get out, Hermione, I am in way too dangerous a mood for you to hang out here now convincing me you are going to do this."

"Harry, wait-" She sounded like she was going to cry again. Harry understood now.

"Leave Hermione."

"Harry, give me another choice! Tell me something, anything, tell me you are going to sleep more, eat a little more, slow down a bit."

"No." Harry answered shortly. _What am I going to do after she tells Dumbledore? Maybe she won't actually.._ Harry tried to stop lying to himself, if there was one thing he knew about Hermione, it was her diligence._ Damn it, Hermione!_

"Alright." Harry answered, thinking up a better option that having Dumbledore suddenly paying too much attention to him. "Alright, what if I tell a professor here, tell one professor that I am training myself to fight the Dark Lord, then will you forget this?"

"Then ask Snape in a week if he knows I'm training myself to be a hero."

Hermione looked at him carefully, before nodding.

"Okay. Okay I won't tell if you will." She said softly. She gave in quickly, and didn't ask why he'd chosen Snape, Harry noticed.

_She didn't want to do this, _a forgiving part of him said. That sliver of forgiveness didn't last long before he remembered what she'd just tried to force him into.

"Hermione?" Harry called her attention back to him as he slowly put his book down and stood up.

"Yes?" She responded quickly.

"I suggest you get out, now." Harry said carefully, struggling to keep his temper under control until she left the room. As soon as the door clicked behind her, Harry's anger exploded into hexes that ripped apart the benign training room. Harry punched a wall and his magic ripped a hole all the way through it. He hadn't even needed a wand. Harry turned around and tore the sand targets to pieces by hand. It was his response to losing people, Harry recognized, to destroy every inanimate object in sight. This time, for once, he didn't have to fix it again afterward. The Room of Requirement would give him new sand bags the next time he trained.

.

"Snape." Harry called in the hallway as he walked from the Room of Requirement to Gryffindor Tower. He'd tried to run and had almost tripped twice. He was too tired. He felt like he had to focus to remember how to walk. Snape turned in the hall at his name, and didn't even bother to respond.

"Remember how you told me to train myself? I'm doing so." Harry stated.

"I'm glowing with pride." Snape drawled, and continued on his way. Harry nodded to himself, and returned to the Room of Requirement, the crisis narrowly avoided.

.

He stopped having to speak his spells at all that week. He could concentrate now, he didn't need the words to help him focus his magic correctly. The Room of Requirement surrounded him with spells, and he learned to block them all at once, to cast multiple shields around himself, fast enough, to stand in the center of the bombardment and wait it out. It gave him child-sized bags of sand to 'protect' while he fought, and he started fighting with a wand in each hand.

He could block and spell at the same time, he could walk casually around the room, studying in a book as he cast shields with one wand. The Room of Requirement started pushing him harder, giving him harder and faster spells to block, and set him running and dodging through the gymnasium again.

Then something went wrong. It was a Sunday, three weeks since speaking with Snape when he was trying to practice the spells he'd studied over the week. He didn't remember them. That hadn't happened for months. He was good at learning now, he'd thought, but something had changed. He went back to his books to study again, but he didn't learn them. He spent an hour writing them down again and again before he could stand up and still remember them.

Eventually Harry gave up on learning anything new, and went to practice his old spells. He could _feel _how weak they were, how badly focused his power was as he cast it. What used to throw a sandbag across the room, could barely lift it. Harry tried the spell again and the bag shook in the air like a terrified, limp child. Harry wanted to cry.

It affected _everything. _His spells, his concentration. He tried to remember old spells and had to struggle with them. His head pounded in pain until he couldn't think past it. It was like all his thoughts were stuck screaming, he couldn't think of anything else but his reaction to the pain as it throbbed, despite having a book in front of him. The book was nothing, just an object, just a series of squiggles that he couldn't make sense of, and didn't want to.

He woke up on the Room of Requirement floor. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but his headache was mostly gone. He threw up, twice, and conjured a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. It came out a mangled rag. He spelled a Tempus. It was 7:00 AM. He'd slept for six hours. Six hours lost.

Harry stood up carefully. It was perhaps the hardest thing he'd done in months. But he would never be a liability again, so he stood up. Harry stumbled his way outside of the room.

_I need the training room. I need the training room. _

He couldn't stop just because it hurt. He'd take a thousand more spell wounds before having to mourn a friend again.

Harry stumbled back into the Room of Requirement. A single spell attacked him. He blocked it with the right shield, but the magic passed through his weak magic. The hex ripped into into his shoulder. Harry stumbled from the push of it and fell to one knee. Another spell caught him on that knee and he fell further. A spell got him in the back, he felt it pass through his magic and then through his skin. He choked back a scream as it burned its way through him. Harry looked down and saw his chest gushing blood--the spell had gone _through _him. Another slashed open his leg as he pushed himself up to crawl.

Harry pulled his way from the room, like a slug pushing along the floor, leaving his trail of blood. He had just made it when he realized what he'd done. He'd run away. He couldn't do that, he was the weapon, he had to fight, to learn. Harry crouched outside in the hall, unable to walk back and forth for it.

_I need to learn to be a weapon. I need to learn to be a weapon_

He went back in.

The door clicked too softly behind him. He wanted it to slam, a firm conclusion to what it had just told him.

_You are not a weapon. You cannot learn to be a weapon._

He'd entered an infirmary room. Low cot, clean sheets, bright magicked lights, all mocking him.

What was going wrong? He'd been getting so good, learning so fast, studying twenty two hours a day. Now he was like that wizard baby he'd seen at the World Cup, playing at magic. Delivered a hospital room for a training room, because training him would be useless, and a fucking magical room had figured it out.

_Oh god it hurts._

Blood was pouring out of him from somewhere. Harry couldn't cry, couldn't even crawl to the bed to hide under the sheets. His legs trailed behind him, too heavy to drag now. He was soaked. Cold. But blood was warm. That didn't make sense. He should feel warm. But cold, he was so cold.

He thought he heard a door open, but it was all mixed with a weird whooshing sound in his ears. Like a wave, but it was only whooshing in, and in, and in. Maybe that was why he was cold, he was wet. He didn't like being wet. It was cold. He was supposed to be warm.

.

.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It was supposed to be warm, Harry thought ridiculously as he woke up. He had the sudden feeling that it was going to be fun to open his eyes, that there was something amusing to watch, and struggled to do so. But his eyes were heavy and were partly stuck together, then he knew that that was okay, that was normal, and someone was taking care of it. He felt something wet and warm sponge over his face, unsticking his eyes. He tried to open them now, there was something for him to watch!, but it was too hard, and he settled back down, wishing he didn't have to miss it.

Harry woke up and opened his eyes. A white, clean ceiling spun in circles above him. But that wasn't right, there was supposed to be something fun to see. He knew it would be that way, there was something fun going on. Harry closed his eyes again, and tried to concentrate on that feeling, there was something fun to see.

He heard laughing first. It was a crackling, animal-like sound that he associated with hyenas at the hunt. He opened his eyes, remembering that he wanted to, though he wasn't quite sure why.

Then sight came, with its colors and shapes and movement all at the same time. The color was red and black and brown, and it was all mixing together and moving frantically around couldn't remember why he couldn't see before, but now he could, and that was good. He felt tall and proud and glorious, and he liked what he was seeing. He was seeing something good. But no, there was something wrong about it. Harry tried to look closer, to concentrate, because something didn't fit, and he didn't know what.

Red was fire, and a brown house behind it sat in the darkness. But no, the house was in the fire. But that was okay, that fit, houses could be on fire, what was wrong?

The laughter, the laughter was wrong. Laughter didn't go with burning houses. And his happiness, his happiness didn't fit either. He tried harder to understand.

And it clicked. It wasn't his laughter, it wasn't his happiness. He was Harry, and he didn't burn houses for no reason. That was someone else, someone else who didn't fit with anything in the world. That one who didn't even laugh like a hyena anymore because hyenas were alive, and alive things could laugh, but that one was supposed to be dead. And he wasn't dead, he was Harry. Voldemort was supposed to be dead.

And then the world righted itself, and he could _see. _

Death Eaters were running around the house, laughing and calling to eachother. They pointed and laughed and clapped each other's backs and Harry wondered how they recognized each other with the masks. They were _everywhere. _Slowly Harry's vision turned and looked back at the house, now spitting flames meters about the roof. His vision slowly shifted back toward the Death Eaters running through the village, and Harry knew that he was seeing through Voldemort's eyes, and that the Dark Lord had turned his head. Death Eaters were running into houses together, and scrambling out dragging muggle women and children by their hair. They were to be pushed into a pile in the middle of the town. They were in Barnton and the men were to be killed without further ado, Harry knew, though he didn't know when he'd learned it.

Harry watched a muggle woman scream and claw at her doorway as she was dragged from a aluminum-sided home. She was punched, but she didn't stop. Then Harry saw why; a wide-eyed, silent curly blond-haired child was looking out from that doorway. Harry saw a stream of red light hit the woman, and her mouth clamped shut.

Harry _pushed _to try and escape through the Dark Lord's eyes, to appear at the scene so he could grab the woman and her child, and protect them while he wiped the scene clean of the monsters and their masks.

"Looks like you got yourself a screamer, you're a lucky one Arsenius." A Death Eater called to the man dragging the now-silent woman.

"Nah, I'm for the silent crying type. Go grab the whelp." 'Arsenius' replied.

Harry _felt _Voldemort's approval, _felt _his plans to raise Arsenius through the ranks. Harry wanted to throw up, wanted to wake up so he could puke the whole memory out of himself.

_I'm asleep, _Harry realized, and then he wasn't anymore.

A white ceiling spun around him. Harry tried to sit up to puke, but knew as soon as he tried that he wasn't going to make it. He couldn't even lift his head. Suddenly, his body was turned sideways, and his vision shifted to see a man-shaped blur sitting in front of him. Harry wondered if he was still in Voldemort's head, and then he was throwing up.

Harry tried to stay in the white room that was so soft, but couldn't keep his eyes open.

He was in front of a pile of bodies. Harry tried to find the woman that he'd seen but he couldn't. All he saw were arms and legs and faces lying over each other like dirty barbies in a toy bin. He wondered, with that thought, where the children were. There were no small limbs in the pile. Harry tried to close his eyes, but Voldemort was still staring at his success, so Harry couldn't stop either.

"What now, my Lord? The night is young." A Death Eater asked him, and Harry recognized the voice. Arsenius_. _

Harry felt a stirring of anger at the name.

Voldemort was pleased.

"You pick, Jugson." Voldemort replied. It was strange hearing that hiss of a voice surround Harry in his thoughts, disattached from everything that he could see. He was almost overwhelmed by how helpless he was while looking through Voldemort's eyes.

"Thank you, my Lord is generous. I'd like to drop in on Bandon, Ireland, for a bit." The man replied, bowing.

"Visiting Daddy?"

"Yes, my Lord, my Lord remembers well." Arsenius replied.

_Not another village, _Harry wanted to moan. He didn't want to see any more fire, or women. Harry tried to close his eyes, and was surprised by the darkness that surrounded him. The sounds and smells of Barnton were gone, replaced by clean air that Harry gasped into his lungs.

"Bandon, they're going to Bandon." Harry tried to scream at that swirling ceiling. It came out as a whisper that rasped into the clean air. Harry tried to yell for help, though it made his lungs scream, but his shout came out no louder than before.

Then he was back in Voldemort's head, too tired to stay awake in his own. Harry wanted to scream and kick and cry to go back to the white room, but he didn't have any body to move with. He'd never realized quite how trapped thoughts were within their skull.

His vision was lurching forward, closer and closer to a small town. Everything was deceptionally quiet. The Death Eaters had orders to chose a house and stand by it, quietly. They'd enter at once.

Harry wanted to run and hide when he focused on the masked figures walking in mass around him. They were perfectly silent, and _organized _beyond anything Harry had seen in the wizarding world. They went and walked through the town, splitting up together and walking down streets around him, and yet seemingly never thinning the crowd. There were simply so many of them that the eye lost count. The town streets were black with moving Death Eaters. It was a nightmare choreographed with the loud clicking of dozens of dress shoes on cobblestone streets.

Voldemort followed one of his Death Eaters up to a house this time. Harry didn't know how he'd survive watching such horror from up close this time. He prayed to wake up, but stayed trapped on a muggle front porch.

The Death Eater rang the doorbell. Voldemort and Harry watched the lights flicker on one by one down the house. The Death Eater took off his mask. He looked like a young businessman, like an older Percy, with short hair parted to one side and a serious, dedicated expression in his eyes.

"Thank you for this chance, my Lord." The young man said with another bow.

Harry's vision tipped as Voldemort lightly nodded his head.

The door opened, and the gasp of a muggle brought Voldemort's head back up to focus on a man in front of him.

"Arsenius, what are you doing here?" The muggle man barked, and Harry was reminded sharply of Vernon._ Perhaps this man has a reason for his cruelty. _Harry thought, before he realized that there was no reason that could explain this. This was not war, this was slaughter, and no bad childhood could justify it.

"Not even going to invite me in, Father?" The Death Eater drawled, and Harry wanted to shiver at the voice.

With that, Voldemort shot his Dark Mark into the air to begin the scene, feeling a wave of relief as the first screams started. No one would ever think of him as powerless again.

Harry had to watch it all that time.

The children were left hanging from trees, he learned, and Harry wished he'd never wondered. It made him connected to it, somehow.

The Death Eaters cackled and yelled to eachother as they poured out of the village in force that night. They all apparated away on Voldemort's orders.

The night was hauntingly silent, afterwards. Harry could hear the wind passing through the streets, and the fires crackling down to nothing as Voldemort waited.

The fires were almost dead by the time Voldemort heard the popping sounds of Order members arriving too late. Voldemort laughed to himself, a light happy sound at the thought that no one was even close to able to fight against him. Dumbledore was an old man, and he renewed in a restored body. The Potter boy was useless, just a symbol to be killed so those of little faith would return to him. Voldemort released his laugh again, and prepared himself to apparate.

The white ceiling wasn't spinning the next time he woke up.

"Arsenius Jugson." Harry tried to speak as he woke, to ensure he'd remember the name. Instead he felt himself puking, and turned to the side. That was good too, whatever he could do to get those sights and thoughts out of his head. Still, one thought he wanted to keep.

He was going to kill Arsenius Jugson.

He needed to get out of the white room. Harry tried to lift his head, and started to raise it. He could feel the energy pouring out of him, like water tipping out of the back of his head. He only made it up an inch before his head fell back, and he didn't have the energy to keep his eyes open anymore.

So back to hell it was.

_I can't do this forever, _Harry thought as he opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in the white room. But he would, Harry knew. He'd continue watching it forever if it meant he could wake up and whisper any information that would help take Voldemort down.

Voldemort was meeting with his Death Eaters this time.

Harry woke up gasping names.

"Mulciber, Nott, Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus-" Harry started to cough and it felt like his lungs were trying to burst from his chest.

"He's awake. Call Pomfrey." He heard a girl say over his coughing. A whooshing sound roared up and died down somewhere nearby. At first Harry thought the village fires had been restarted, until he realized he was in the white room, and there were no villages there.

)

**Author's Note:**

**One of my favorite peoples in the world suggested I stop updating this here, that I really work on what I've got and repost it when its more complete and I can keep Harry from annoying everybodies. I'm considering that, it mainly depends on what you guys want + how writing this next coming chapter goes. So, you've seen Harry bottom out, 'cause in canon he's a dumbass, but if you'd like to see this story reworked, send me what you want changed and I'll consider doing that, if you like what I've posted, tell me that and I'll continue. =) Tell me what you think. Thanks much!**

**Okays!! I've come to my decision! Thank you loads to all who reviewed, y'all are fantastic, all my reviews were extremely helpful and I love y'all. Okay, here's the deal, I'm going to revise a lot of this, probably by the simple measure of replacing the previous chapters with revised versions. I'm going to do my best to update everything all at the same time, which I will do once I've gotten my revised versions up to this same point in the story. I'll write a summery of everything that has changed, which probably won't be much, mostly I'm thinking a lot of my story has to happen slower. If you have any ideas for what I should revise, send them my way! So, I'm probably not going to update for a long time (since I've got lots of story to revise) but I just finished exams and it's summer so the revision process will probably go faster than not. Sorries!! I'll be back soon!  
**

***Tries to dodge thrown tomatoes* **


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **

**Hellos all, I'm still revising, but I'm burning the candle at both ends now, so I've got this next part written. It's really short, 'cause my focus is still getting that revision done, but I wanted to show y'all that I'm not giving up on this story, not at all. So, Harry all sick and stuff, and now he wakes up. Scene 7, Take 1, go:**

.

.

.

"Not back there, not back there!" Harry pleaded as he woke up.

_Just let me stay in the white room, _Harry thought desperately as a face made its way into his vision.

"You were an idiot to go there in the first place, Mr. Potter, I'm hardly inclined to make you do it again." A voice answered, coming straight out of the face above him.

Harry stared, wishing he could understand that phenomena but too tired to think about it. He just wanted to sleep, why shouldn't he sleep? Harry knew he wasn't supposed to, but he couldn't remember any reason why he shouldn't, he was so tired..

"The villages!" Harry croaked as he remembered. "Don't sleep, no, no not back there, don't make me go." Harry pleaded again, even as he felt his vocal cords ripping in his throat.

"Drink, Potter." A voice told him. Harry didn't understand what that meant, there was nothing to drink, and he didn't want anything in his mouth after seeing-

Harry threw up and felt himself turned on his side. The taste left his mouth immediately.

"Henti." Harry groaned.

"Drink, Potter!" The voice barked.

_Oh_. There was a cold glass cup at his lips.

"It will help keep you here." The voice explained.

_Yes, yes, need to stay, not back there, no villages. White room, just stay in the white room._

"One would think after killing your Godfather, you'd put more effort into Occlumency, but I see not even death can influence your idiocy."

"Sirius." Harry gasped, and felt the weight of the world fall on him again.

_Can't stay here, too comfortable, have to be fighting, I'm the weapon, have to save them._

"Henti." Harry stated, and found that string in his mind that connected him to the bad place, and _pulled. _

.

Harry was shocked by the _quiet _in Voldemort's mind; usually it was so loud, the raid's fire and screams and begging drowning everything but suffering from the world, but now as Harry looked down from Voldemort's throne, he heard nothing but footsteps. Voldemort was in a huge room, waching as it filled. Death Eaters were pouring in through the doors and joining the kneeling rows of Death Eaters below him. Harry wondered how the Death Eaters managed to apparate in without apparating _into _each other, there had to be at least a thousand already kneeling in their lines. Apparently the obsequious begging of the Dark Lord's followers was getting organized.

_An organized band of rapists, _Harry thought furiously, watching the newcomers closely to see how they knew which row to join. Harry focused on one and saw the masked man take his place, and point his wand straight at his left forearm. Within minutes ten Death Eaters joined behind him. The last one in the row took out his wand and cast something at own Dark Mark.

It was only then that Harry realized what he'd been missing. He could feel, touch, and smell everything around Voldemort, everything Voldemort felt, but he couldn't feel that Death Eater's spell, he couldn't feel any of the magic that must have been swirling around the room.

_Can Voldemort not feel magic? Is that the power that Voldemort knows not? Magical Detection? _

It wouldn't matter, Harry thought, looking around the room. He was facing an army of battle-trained wizards, men with money and power and experience that would never fight him face to face. He could know a hundred more spells, feel the magic around the entire room and study it until he understood every rule of magic ever conceived of, but he could not fight this, he'd never be given a chance. These men were not readying themselves for a one to one duel with the Boy Who Lived, they were preparing for war, and he didn't know a thing about that.

The room filled, and then was silent. Harry's vision lifted as Voldemort stood from his throne.

"Malfoy." A hissing voice surrounded Harry's thoughts, and boomed across the room. Harry watched a masked Death Eater from the front row take off his mask slowly, revealing Lucius Malfoy's blond hair and thin face. Lucius stood, approached Voldemort and fell to his same kneel with one knee up and one down and his head bowed submissively.

"My Lord." Lucius replied, his voice amplified around the room but quieter than the Dark Lords. Malfoy looked like a noble bowing before his king, but Harry knew that despite all the ceremony, if he could look down, he'd see Tom Riddle's emaciated hands hanging with badly fitting rings and stretched with newly-formed skin pulled too tight like leather stretched on a tanning rack.

_He's disgusting and God knows you sick fucks aren't nobles, _Harry thought, savagely wondering how noble Lucius would look nailed up by his hands.

"Stand." Voldemort ordered, and waited for Lucius to be standing before he continued.

"Plan the war, Dumbledore's a fool, and too old to fight. Ignore the raids, those are child's play. The war is yours."Came Voldemort's whispered orders, though they were magically loud, and suddenly Harry knew that the wispy voice wasn't done for effect. That was as loud as Voldemort could make his voice after walking for too long that day. The Dark Lord was still sickly from his rebirth, and couldn't hide it. Magic simply made his whisper loud enough for thousands to hear. "Death Eaters, this man is both powerful and wise and I lay our faith in him." Voldemort announced. "Lucius Malfoy, hail."

_Not up to his own war and he knows it._ Harry wanted to mock Voldemort to his face.

"Yes my Lord, thank you, my Lord." Lucius responded. Lucius replaced his mask as he bowed, and stood up with it replaced. Only then did he return to the front of his row. Lucius returned to his kneel.

_Like a trained parrot. Damn it this charade is ridiculous. _

_"_Jugson." Voldemort hissed. The name broke Harry out of his thoughts and he was left staring. Jugson, this was Arsenius Jugson. Harry watched, feeling almost excited as Arsenius Jugson stood and slowly took off his mask to kneel next to the Malfoy elder. Harry memorized Jugson's face through Voldemort's eyes, committing every bit to memory.

Arsenius looked like a young businessman, like an older Percy, with his short hair parted to one side and the pleased, dedicated expression in his eyes that Percy always showed around Cornelius Fudge.

"The child's play is yours. Plan the raids, kill the spares." The hissing voice ordered. "Death Eaters, this man will lead you to the raids, follow him and rejoice."

_Why does Voldemort care about killing muggles? _Harry wondered, before Henti's flace flashed through his mind. _Child's play, _Harry repeated furiously. Jugson smiled, an honored, excited grin and Harry wished again that he could burst from behind Voldemort's eyes and tear them all to pieces.

"Yes, my Lord, thank you, my Lord, oh thank you, my Lord."

_And he sounds so fucking grateful._

Jugson was still bowing and smiling as he walked back to kneel with his row.

_"_Snape." Voldemort hissed next. The mass of kneeling Death Eaters fidgeted. "Not here?" Voldemort asked, sounding oddly pleased by Snape's absense. None of the Death Eaters looked up to answer.

_He likes the excuse to torture someone, he is too smart to do it randomly, and Snape just gave him an open invitation. _Harry thought as he wondered what the hell Snape was doing and why he'd ignored Voldemort's call.

"May I speak, my Lord?" Lucius asked without lifting his head. Voldemort's vision jolted back to the kneeling pureblood.

"On his behalf?" Voldemort asked.

"Yes, my lord." Lucius responded quietly.

"Speak." Voldemort ordered. Lucius looked up finally, though his eyes were kept focused at Voldemort's feet.

"Snape was waylaid by Dumbledore, my Lord. My Draco told me as we met up here, Snape was prepared to join us but contacted Draco at the last minute that Dumbledore had ordered his presence, at the risk of his loyalty. If he were to disobey, my Lord, he would have lost his standing in Dumbledore's misplaced esteem." Lucius finished, and bowed a bit in his kneeling position.

_This is too complicated, how the hell am I supposed to know if Snape is loyal or not? Did Dumbledore actually threaten him like that or is Lucius lying? Or is Lucius just wrong and Draco was lying? Either way I have no idea if Severus Snape is a Death Eater or not. Why the hell is Lucius defending Snape here?  
_

"Defending your son's godfather as ever, Lucius. Much time has passed since the last war, and I warned you then, do not let that _child_ make you weak. We have to build an army, and so far your son and his godfather have hardly even been present in it." Suddenly Voldemort's whispered voice became cutting.

"We are one, Lucius, you can not split your loyalty and call yourself a loyal man. Treasure your son for his potential as a Death Eater, but remember that he is nothing without that potential. Snape is the same, he is nothing if he is not loyal."

"Yes, my Lord, thank you, my Lord." Lucius responded.

"Hear me Death Eaters, look up at me, all of you." Voldemort ordered.

It was haunting, to see all of the Death Eaters in their rows snap up their heads, almost in unison. Harry wanted to hide from them, from the thousands of faces that now stared with worship-like awe at Voldemort's eyes.

"We are the enlightened, do not forget why we gather here. We are one, because we understand how this world works, and we are equally devoted to fighting for a better life for every wizard that lives on it. Democracy's foundation lies in a deceitful theory that the Ministry insinuates, namely the theory that all men are created equal. You know that is not true, you see it in every school, in every tournament , contest, and duel that has ever existed. Some wizards are simply stronger than others, some wizards are more prepared to lead than others, and the Ministry has never been able to defend why it insists on ignoring that fact, why it consistently allows the weak to lead. And now we see Democracy's result. The Ministry is comprised of fame-driven fools. The majority of the world is not comprised of people able to lead, but of those needing a leader. The Ministry of Magic has failed them. The Ministry's so called 'leaders' change their mind at every twist and turn, to always say what their people want to hear, even as their control unravels around them. We realize what is wrong with a Ministry governing a wizarding world, insisting that all wizards are created equally, when we know the truth. We are strong and Fudge is a rat that scurries at our feet, there is _something wrong_ with the world that gives Fudge the right to tell us what magic we may and may not use. Power is everything, there are strong wizards and there are weak ones, and the world is that simple. We are the few that understand that. We must come together and rise up above the Ministry and Dumbledore's disordered band of scurrying rats, and show the world a new Order, a new way of life, where the leaders have the right to lead, and those who know nothing but to follow, follow in their rightful place." Voldemort seemed to be gasping out his speech, but he didn't seem close to finishing it.

"Do you know why house-elves seek to serve wizards, Lucius?" Voldemort asked, and waited.

"No, my Lord." Lucius responded, though his voice came out strong and proud to wait for the Dark Lord's answer.

"We all must serve something. Some men serve women, others money, others their fame. Something they devote themselves to. Without it, we are nothing but miserable slugs left without plan or purpose. House-elves realize that, and chose to serve wizards, and therein lies the secret to their happiness. But we are better than house-elves, better than the Minister's rats, we are stronger, and we are wiser, we chose something greater than Dumbledore or _Cornelius Fudge _to follow. We have a vision, I have a vision of a world where wizards have no country, no borders, no race, and no limits thrust upon them by a fickle minded public and a disordered Ministry. A world where wizards rise as one people, one nation, led under a guiding light. I have a vision of a world where those with the strength, the courage, and the wisdom to rule can do so, and of a world where the weak shall be brought up to a better life, strengthened under the guiding light of the strongest. Together, we will see our vision done. Rise and salute, Death Eaters, we will rejoice this day!"

It was strange, hearing a speech that should come out insistent and proud, delivered in Voldemort's weak, hissing voice, but the Death Eaters didn't seem to notice. They rose from their kneel as one and threw their left arm out to the side, with their elbows bent and their fists raised straight for the sky. The uniform robes' loose sleeves fell with the salute, and Harry found himself facing rows and rows of Dark Mark tatoos.

"HAIL!" The Death Eaters shouted as one, and Harry wanted to protect his ears from the deafening sound of thousands of voices saluting in a single room. The room was silent in it's wake.

_He really is a Lord, _Harry understood.

"14 years have passed since the first war, a new generation has grown old enough to join us. We will witness a great thing this day, we will watch as the youth rises up. They have taken their marks and masks, let us watch them take their places with us. Recruiters, bring them."

Harry watched as Death Eaters throughout the crowd took out their wands and touched it to their Dark Marks. Voldemort turned his head to the side, and Harry watched dozens of Death Eaters pass through a pair of doors there. Some walked tentatively into the room, glancing around at the rows of Death Eaters behind them, others stalked in with their necks stretched high. One new Death Eater even waved into the room, though how he knew which robed man to wave at, Harry had no idea. Harry could feel Voldemort's amuzed disgust; they were all fools. Harry felt Voldemort's laughter ripple around his mind though it didn't make a sound.

The Death Eaters lined up to individually approach Voldemort and kneel before him, before getting up and disappearing into the crowd. The newly iniciated's kneels were all unpracticed and they wobbled as they stood back up to join the crowd. Harry watched one pass after the next, and felt pity born into his stomach. These were the people he had vowed to fight, and somehow their unpracticed, wobbled bows made them seem more like people under masks than inhuman epitomes of evil like he had so childishly thought before.

Once the last new Death Eater took his place in the rows, Voldemort let silence fall again.

"Kneel." He ordered succinctly, and the room dropped. "You are one force, stronger than ever. Rise, and salute."

Harry braced himself this time, as the Death Eaters rose, and shouted.

"HAIL!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Helloses!! I'm back! AND THE REVISION IS DONE!!! *Does crazy dance* *Does another crazy dance*. Okay, so here's the deal, this is the last chapter of the Revised version, which ends at the same spot as what's published here, so if ya wanna go straight from this story to what happens next, read this and just keep going. Some stuff might now make sense, but here's a little summary of what happens differently in the revision. If you _are _going to read the Revision version, it's called (creatively) "The Weapon (Revised!)". I'll probably be updating it a new chapter every other day or so, until it's caught up to this point, and then we'll see how fast I can write. :) WHOOHOOBIES! (Forgive my enthusiasm, this was a llllooottt of work, and I managed to finish it before the summer was up--literally on the plane back to school I wrote the last bit of revision stuffs) *breathes***

**REVISION SPOILER ALERT**

* Moody (sorta) helps train Harry

* Dumbledore continues meetings about Voldemort like in canon

* Dumbledore's hand is all screwed up like in canon

* Katie Bell gets hurt "" "" ""

* Harry has dissing battle, though no actual magical fighting with Draco.

"Why am I watching this?, What's going on?" Harry gasped desperately as he woke up. He didn't remember if he'd asked it before or not, he just needed to know. He was supposed to be gathering information to help with the Order, but there was nothing _needed _in what he'd just seen. It was all just Voldemort's sick version of play, shown over and over and too late to help anyone. He was supposed to be learning to tolerate pain, Harry knew, was Moody doing this? This he couldn't deal with, it wasn't even helping anything. He couldn't stand it.

"Make him stop." Harry heard himself cry out, and carefully forced his lips together to stop himself. He felt the familiar soreness in his throat that suggested he'd been screaming for a long while before.

"I've been told that is _your _heroic calling, Mr. Potter." A cold voice bit out. Harry grimaced and turned his head toward the sound.

Snape. Of course Snape. Harry suppressed a groan. Severus Snape would never help him make someone else's screaming stop.

"Get the hell out of here." Harry ordered. His voice came out thick and rough, but at least it sounded stronger than before.

"Manners, Mr. Potter." Snape scolded with a pleased looking smirk stretching his face hideously.

Harry stayed silent, looking up at the now-stationary ceiling. He felt the urge to rise to Snape's provocation as always, but he was sick of their squabbling. Any response he could think of –_'As you wish', or 'Sod off', or 'I just watched a man have his eyes turned inside out and back so please go fuck yourself and your manners, Professor Snape, and leave me alone to deal with that 'cause it was the one thing I didn't fucking train myself to manage without screaming, thanks very much.'–_sounded only angry and ultimately useless. He had enough to deal with in his own head without proving yet again that he hated Snape and Snape hated him.

_I don't hate Snape, _Harry corrected immediately, wishing he could reach in and strangle his past thoughts. He knew what his hate felt like, and Snape didn't have it.

_'Please be so kind as to escort yourself out, Professor. I'd like a moment.' _Harry considered saying, but that wasn't right either. He was no Slytherin, and he didn't deal in Slytherin politics. He h-disliked Snape, Snape knew it, and there was no point in hiding it. Harry stayed silent again, trying to decide what to say that was honest and would get Snape to 'get the hell out of there'. He just wanted to be alone so he could think.

"Unfortunately," Snape began with his lip pulled up from his yellowed front teeth, "I am held responsible for saving your-" here Snape looked Harry up and down pointedly. "-life." Snape finished.

If he were in any other mood, Harry knew he would have laughed. He'd forgotten how dramatic Snape was in his dislike.

"And I assume the potion is volatile enough that you have to know how close to dead I am to know how to brew it." Harry responded, half in question.

"Potion_s _and it's your so-called mental condition that is the variable factor." Snape sneered as if Harry should have known that already. "I suspect two folds of parakeet cerebrum would suffice, but Dumbledore thought otherwise." Snape added.

Harry almost snorted aloud in amusement. The man was like an angry child.

"I see." Harry responded as politely as he could, before settling back into his pillow. He needed to go back into Voldemort's brain, before he missed anything that could help the next Henti from being killed. It would only be selfish to stay here.

He'd become accustomed to the sound of burning houses, Harry realized with a sickened shock when he entered Voldemort's mind and was startled by the quiet there. All Harry saw from Voldemort's eyes was a stone staircase that Voldemort was traveling down. The walls were lined with intricate tapestries, Harry saw though he could not examine more of them, as Voldemort was focusing on the stone steps beneath him. It was a strangely humanizing moment, Harry thought, to see the Dark Lord focus on the step in front of him to avoid falling.

An image of Voldemort in all his horrendous snake-like glory tripping down the steps flashed int Harry's mind. He would have openly grinned if he could have.

"What is the objective in this, if I may ask, my Lord?" A refined male voice requested from behind him. Harry itched to turn, only half-sure that it was Malfoy Sr. behind him, but Voldemort did not bother.

"I've had a bad day." Voldemort answered, still facing forward. The line, while it could have sounded childish, made Harry want to run screaming back into the white room before he had to see or hear anything more. Voldemort's voice made the words sound purely dangerous.

Harry had the thought confirmed when Voldemort reached the foot of the stairway and pulled open the plain-looking wooden door that sat at the bottom, releasing a wave of the distinctive sounds of a man screaming.

Harry felt himself try to blink a few times in surprise until he realized that wizarding locks weren't usually done mechanically, so of course the dungeon door could look like any other.

Wizarding dungeons were different than he'd read about in muggle fiction stories, Harry noted as he passed into a well-lit, carpeted hallway. It looked like it was taken straight from the second floor of the Leaky Caldron, except for the line of torture instruments that held themselves delicately up along the walls. Harry wanted to shudder. He'd have preferred dragons and cold stone to the almost cheerful atmosphere of the torture here.

Voldemort adopted that same attitude when he took his wand to cause pain. The man this time was obviously wizarding, from the things he shouted. Harry wondered how anyone seeing Voldemort's actions could think wizards and muggles were fundamentally different. Their screams all sounded the same.

Harry watched as Voldemort climbed out of the carpeted dungeon with the sounds of Lucius Malfoy's footsteps still trailing passively behind him.

"Is there anything specific you'd like me to bring up in the meeting, my Lord?" asked Lucius's voice from far behind Voldemort's shoulder.

"I will handle them, Lucius. You're failures of late have been too numerous for even me to count." Voldemort's voice responded.

_Woah, _Harry responded. _I thought Lucius was Voldemort's right hand?_

"Yes, my Lord." Lucius's voice replied with perfect respect.

They reached the top of the stairway and Voldemort spelled the door above him open before passing through to a huge hallway. Harry spotted few decorations but they all gave off the air of being either horrendously expensive or entirely priceless. The hallway floor was obviously some type of white marble, though it was almost entirely covered up by the embroidered rug that stretched down the entire hallway and around a corner Voldemort wasn't seeing past.

Voldemort turned through a doorway and heard Lucius quietly shut the door behind them.

They'd entered what looked like a muggle conference room, Harry observed, before his eyes adjusted to see past the bright floating globes of light and recognize the people seated inside. The room couldn't seem less muggle after that.

Bellatrix, Wormtail, Avery, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and Arsenius Jugson, to replace Waldon MacNair. With Lucius Malfoy, that made Voldemort's top circle.

Harry looked around at all of them, imagining bursting through Voldemort's eyes to kill them all. They'd been killing comfortably for far too long. All of the Death Eaters had.

_They will fucking fear me. _Harry thought savagely, looking at all of their faces as Voldemort crossed the room towards the table's head. He'd heard all of their names and voices in the last raid. They were all there, and _Lucius Malfoy _was the only one who hadn't seemed to enjoy the killing. He'd just done it efficiently, with an air of boredom around him, like it were any other tedious job. Harry still wasn't sure which of the two types of Death Eaters were worse: the ones who were little more than rapists in a mob, and the ones who weren't.

Voldemort took his seat after Malfoy. Harry looked down the table from Voldemort's seat, wondering if there was some understood significance to the place settings that he hadn't thought of.

_Of course there is, _Harry scolded himself. This was a political meeting.

_Then why is Malfoy in disfavor?, _Harry wondered, watching the blond-haired pureblood pointedly ignore the other Death Eaters' knowing smirks from his place between Bellatrix and Arsenius.

_He got caught. _Harry reminded himself, taking advantage of Voldemort's silence to think. _Getting caught ruined almost all of his political power. Except for his money he's almost useless. _

_But other Death Eaters were commended for their dedication in going to Azkaban._ Harry reminded himself, suddenly confused. Other than for getting caught, the disaster at the Ministry hadn't had anything to do with Malfoy, that plan was the Dark Lord's own. Voldemort wouldn't be stupid enough to blame one of his top circle for his own mistake, would he?

_Apparently. _Harry thought, watching Bellatrix flash Lucius a pleased smile and feeling Voldemort's amusement.

Voldemort was flanked by Nott and Avery, with Avery looking refined and proud at his right hand.

_There's an empty chair, _Harry noticed suddenly when Voldemort focused his gaze on the wooden chair between Nott and Crabbe and felt a burst of pure anger.

Wormtail was currently curling his fingers up and down in a parody of a wave across the table at the elder Malfoy. Harry felt Voldemort's disgust mirror his own at the somehow _grossly_ effeminate lump of a man, and wished he could be irresponsible enough to pull away from the Dark Lord's emotions while watching the same scene. He couldn't risk the lack of information, but he wanted it horridly.

"Avery, report." Voldemort ordered.

"I've run and updated the numbers you've asked me for, my Lord. This month's recruitment has gone well. We've gotten another 200 to take up the mask, though many of the non-combative members are still not assigned to specific departments, which means those departmental figures will remain the same as those I reported on in our last meeting. This latest recruitment brings us to 12, 188 members, which means we are currently representing an even 20% of the population. I believe comrade Snape has informed us of a current 3, 656 wizards fighting against us, including the Ministry's 'Centrally Assigned Aurors' and Dumbledore's 'Order' members. This would mean of the total English wizarding population of 60,943, the members fighting against us total an intimidating 6 percent, my Lord."

Harry mentally winced as Voldemort's inner circle began to cackle. Only Malfoy and Voldemort refrained, and even they spared a pleased smile.

"I was hoping for thirty percent by now, Augustus." Voldemort said quietly in a disappointed voice that made Harry's mind writhe.

"Yes, my Lord." Avery responded, sounding apologetic and wary. "If my Lord would permit the distribution of propaganda, recruitment would certainly-"

"No, I think not." Voldemort interrupted, sounding almost harsh in comparison to his usual quiet, hissing voice.

"Yes, my Lord." Avery subsided.

"Nott." Voldemort ordered, his vision swinging over to the older Death Eater on his other side.

By the time Harry woke up, he'd learned exactly what Slytherins considered politics, confirmed that Voldemort was vindictive and insane, and had been _bored _for hours_. _Harry snapped open his eyes as soon as he realized that he was back in the white room.

He'd learned information someone could _use _this time. Voldemort had subtly threatened to strip Lucius of his Advising position and give him Nott's task which 'surely his family could manage without drawing any more embarrassing attention', if Draco didn't make noteworthy changes. Harry still didn't know what Draco was was supposed to change, but he wanted to give the information to someone who could _do something _for once. He learned more about the Death Eater leadership than he'd ever expected to know. He was just a fighter, he didn't need to know that the Death Eaters were taking over all of England without needing a single fight. The _Minister _needed to know that. _Dumbledore _needed to know that, so the Order could actually start battling for victory. According to Nott's account of the raids, the Opposition was wasting most of their time and magic obliterating muggles and burying graves. In other words, the raids were going exactly as planned. The 'Opposition' needed to _know. _

But of course the only other in the tiny white room was Madam Pomfrey.

"Madam Pomfrey!" Harry called, his voice strong.

_I wasn't screaming this time, _Harry realized. His voice had finally found its needed time to heal.

"Good evening, Mr. Potter." She answered, quickly smiling and crossing the room towards him.

_Better than Snape. At least I have no reason to think she's a spy. Though she's just as unlikely to trust me on this. _

"I need to see Dumbledore, please. Could you floo him that message for me, please?" Harry said as clearly as he could manage.

"Dumbledore is out of the castle, Mr. Potter." The mediwitch said as she handed him a glass vial filled with something dark and viscous. "That's not to mention the fact that you are extremely sick. This is not the time for heavy emotional conversations of any type other than those needed to get you better." She insisted.

"I will survive this, Madam Pomfrey." Harry answered, carefully reigning in his anger. He needed to _think._

"Yes, you will." Pomfrey insisted confidently.

"Please floo Dumbledore for me, Madam." Harry repeated.

"Mr. Potter, in the last week you have had four different organ failures. I had to cleanse your blood of two different mixed potions which would have interfered with everything I administered. The time that took allowed your magic to deteriorate so badly that its innate protection has weakened. You need to take this potion, Mr. Potter, it is made to help your magic restore itself rather than focus on strengthening your body. You-Know-Who could have gotten into your _mind, _Mr. Potter." Madam Pomfrey reported.

_I got into his, actually. _

"I am not taking any potions and I refuse any more medical treatment until I see him." Harry stated praying wizarding law gave minors that right. He was pretty sure muggle English law didn't. From Pomfrey's shocked expression, Harry thought he had a good chance.

"I believe the school has that right, Mr. Potter." Pomfrey answered, though she sounded worried.

"The school board or Dumbledore himself?" Harry asked, wondering why he hadn't ever questioned that before. Who did have legal authority over him until he was of age? The Dursleys? Hogwarts? Someone in the Ministry? From Pomfrey's flustered demeanor, he guessed she wasn't quite sure either.

_Has she been treating me without legal consent for years now? _Harry wondered. Pomfrey was still holding the glass vial in front of her face, though it was leaning precariously to the side. Harry took it from her and carefully placed it on the bedside table.

_I can move now, _Harry noticed, looking contemplatively at the potion vial.

"I need to speak to Dumbledore. Would you please get him for me?" Harry repeated.

"The Dark Lord _still could _infiltrate your mind, Mr. Potter! I admit I do not know what that would mean, or if you would be able to detect it, but Professor Dumbledore has warned me that it is a possibility, and could be dangerous. Your connection with the Dark Lord is unique, and it is not something I can treat, but I do know that you've spent the last two weeks coming in and out of consciousness, you are fatigued and emaciated and coming off of an addiction to Mandrake Draught!" She said in a tone that sounded like a yell, even though she stayed quiet.

_Did I almost die this week? _Harry wondered absently, before pulling his mind back to the town names Nott had arranged to raid that week.

"Am I in St. Mungos?" Harry asked suddenly, for once awake enough to look around and see all of the white room, which looked to him now to be a very small and private infirmary room.

"You would have been, Mr Potter! Only Dumbledore's worry that St. Mungos will not keep you safe has circumvented that, though I was not convinced Snape and I were prepared to face this on our own." She informed him, sounding more and more angry at the idea as she expressed it.

"Have you been treating me without legal consent, Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked pointedly.

Madam Pomfrey's anger ran away from her face. She seemed to deflate without it, and returned to being a middle-aged matron witch.

"If the Ministry did not give consent, and the Dursleys did not give consent, then I must have been declared capable to do so myself. In that case, I refuse all treatments as before." Harry answered, again relying on what little he'd learned of muggle law through the Dursley's television set.

Madam Pomfrey sat carefully on the end of his bed, looking more human than he'd ever seen her. The constant strictness in her face melted away to reveal skin slightly wrinkled with age and worry.

"The truth is, Mr. Potter, I do not know. I'd never in my life thought I would illegally treat a patient, but I had not thought of the issue when it first came up after the Lockhart fiasco, and I had not thought of it ever after. I'd never dealt with a case like yours, with an orphaned wizarding child being raised by muggles, and I hadn't thought of the legal ramifications. Dumbledore told me to treat you like any other child, and I thought he meant that I wasn't to greet you with any special expectations or attitude. I'd never thought that I'd be crossing legal boundaries with you." She confessed, the past shock returning to her face now.

_So that's why she looked like she'd been run over by a hippogriff stampede._

"Please send for Professor Dumbledore, Madam." Harry answered, knowing he didn't have time to comfort her, nor would it be respectful. She was a member of the faculty, and he was a student. He was supposed to ignore it if she ever stepped out of her academic role in public, and Harry doubted that she would appreciate anything else.

"I'll go floo and see if he's available." Pomfrey answered, sounding more shocked than he'd ever heard her, including the time that he'd walked into her infirmary without any bones in one arm.

"Thank you." Harry answered absently as he noticed Pomfrey picking up the vial from beside him and wandering off towards the door with it.

"Your welcome, Mr. Potter." Pomfrey answered, sounding calm already as she opened the door across the room from him. Harry tried to look beyond his room, but couldn't see anything before the mediwitch had closed the door behind her.

Only then did he notice the pain building up between his temples. Harry wasn't sure when he had sat up, but he now allowed himself to sink back into his pillow, hoping it would smother the headache moving had prompted. Then he started to sink himself into the old meditation he'd used to focus on his magic. He couldn't feel _anything_ of his magic anymore, it was like he was a muggle sitting in the middle of a completely muggle room, despite the glowing lights he saw around the room. He couldn't even feel a semi-permanent _lumos. _


End file.
